Slow Food opens San Francisco office, wants it permanently

Slow Food International has opened a San Francisco office, its second permanent office in the U.S. outside of New York, and hopes to make it permanent.

The office was opened about six months ago in North Beach, at Stockton and Union Streets, primarily to organize the much-heralded Slow Food Nation food expo, which is set for May 1-4, 2008 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.

Slow Food now estimates the expo will draw 60,000 people to Fort Mason Center!

But the office is also meant to service the highly visible San Francisco-area chapter of Slow Food USA, and Slow Food International would like to keep the office going even after the Expo folds up shop and, in all likelihood, moves to the East Coast in 2009, for example Ann Arbor.

For now, the office is small, about 600 square feet and two people, including Slow Food Nation's Content Director, who I spoke to for the full story on the Business Times website today (free link). But it is expected to grow.