Mike Stevens - Island Savoy Market

Mike Stevens is the owner of Island Savoy Market

Host Scott Piehler talks with Mike about his transition from the film industry to owning one of Alameda’s true community markets. The conversation includes a deep dive into the art of sandwich making, as well as the economic value of supporting local small business, and, in return, the obligation of the business to the community.

Show note: This episode originally aired on KCSM-HD2 on Sunday, August 2, 2026

Full show archive for all past episodes: 

https://www.youtube.com/@TheAlamedaConnection

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Good morning, and welcome to the Alameda Connection on KCSM HD2. I'm your host, Scott Peeler. Growing up in a small town, I got very used to the idea that your local market wasn't just a place to buy groceries, but it was a place to get a freshly made sandwich, a cup of coffee or a soda, and a place to sit down and catch up with your neighbors on what was going on in the community. Here in Alameda at 1200 Lincoln Avenue, that community market spirit still exists. My guest this morning is Mike Stevens, the owner of Alameda's Island Savoy Market. Opening its doors in the summer of 2022, Island Savoy Market has been providing Alamedans with some of the best locally produced food available, a deli that makes classic sandwiches with a gourmet twist, and a friendly cafe with indoor and outdoor seating that invites folks to do much more than just rush in and rush out. Island Savoy has become the centerpiece of what is a true hidden foodie gem in Alameda, the neighborhood area known as Bay Station, which also features previous Alameda Connection guests, Forbidden Island and Whisk Cake Creations. Mike and I spend time talking about the true art of sandwich making and why supporting your local small business truly matters. That's Mike Stevens of Island Savoy Market. This morning, the Alameda Connection on KCSMHD2. Good morning, Mike, and welcome to the Alameda Connection. Thank you very much, Scott. This is my first podcast. I'm very excited. Well, very good. First of all, where were you born?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Where'd you grow up Providence, Rhode Island? Okay. I left there in 1990, 24 years old, moved to Los Angeles. Various adventures led me up to the Bay Area in about 2000. And you're a proud catamount, University of Vermont, grad, eh? Uh I am, yeah. What was your course of study there? Got my BA in political science. I can't tell you that I ever did a moment of political sciencing after graduation. College is one of those weird things where they ask you at 17, what do you want to be for the rest of your life? This is what you're going to study. And you'd be like, uh So that's what I was into. And you said you moved West when again? In uh 1990. What prompted the move? At the time, my college roommate had just moved to Los Angeles to go to graduate school. My brother had just moved to Los Angeles to after graduate school to start a new job. New England in the early 90s was a bad economy. There wasn't a lot of a lot of work. That was when my wife and I left New England for the South. At that time, I was like, I got nothing to lose. I threw everything I had into you know Subaru Hatchback and drove to LA. Did you have a plan or was it just let's see what happens? It's kind of a recurring theme with me. I didn't really have a plan. I just kind of went in and saw what happened. It was a fun ten years. It was a really great adventure.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

1991, director of development in the film industry, then a director of movies and miniseries.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Any projects we would know? I ended up working as an intern for the production designer who did original Tim Burton Batman movie. And his name was Anton First, and he had just won an Academy Award for production design. Columbia Pictures gave him what they call a development deal. Right. He was going to direct movies. I was an unpaid intern gopher. I got to hang out with the art department. We had a lot of fun. At the time, they were developing a superhero character that Michael Jackson was going to play. Oh my goodness. And Anton was going to direct the movie. Wow. They had no story. They had no character. We had two artists. They would sit in their room drawing and then need reference material. And so they would say, Hey Mike, go get us this. Go get us that. That's what I did for like six months. I ran I ran and got them stuff. They were very cool about letting me kind of figure out what reference material to use. And they were trying to just kind of figure out if Michael Jackson were going to be a superhero, what would be a superpower kind of thing. Unfortunately, Anton passed away at a young age and that never happened. But coincidentally enough, Anton, after Batman, he did a movie called Awakenings with a director named Penny Marshall. So Anton made the introduction and she hired me to paint her guest room. I started painting Penny's guest room. And then the second day that I was there painting, her producer called me and said, Listen, we need help answering the phones. Oh no. We need some help in the office. Can you forget about painting the guest room? And tomorrow morning come into the office. I came into the office and from there I started working for Penny and then worked my way up to being Penny's director of development. That didn't that didn't happen in 1991. In 1991, interestingly enough, my first thing that they wanted me to do, they were developing a movie called The League of Their Own. They were auditioning actresses to see if they could act the role and realistically play baseball. Okay. Now all of the line reading would be done at the studio with Penny, but the baseball had to be done out on a field with the baseball coaches. I would go out there with a camcorder. They gave me a list of names and they said we want to see her throw. We want to see her bat, we want to see her run. This actress might be good as a pitcher. We have to see if she can pitch. I just stand there. I just I just stood there and filmed actresses and then would bring the tapes back, edit the clips for Penny, and then she would look at them. That's where that started. Okay. So that was a really long kind of winding, winding road to get to I did that for a while. I worked with Penny on all the films that she did between 1991 and about 1998. Then I was working for a sort of a pre-streaming television world where there were not as many small series and broadcast movies being made. It was a very weird time in the television industry. I was worked that job for about eight months, and then the studio that I worked for decided they didn't want to be in the movie and miniseries business anymore. And then he said, So we don't really need you. 2002, you wind up teaching screenwriting. What brought that up out? A friend of mine, Jeff Gordon, had a screenwriting program in Santa Monica. I had moved to the Bay Area by then, sort of gave up on entertainment and relocated and tried to reinvent myself. But he gave me a call and he said, Listen, we'd we'd like to try to open a satellite classroom. We'll rent some classroom space and I'd like you to uh teach the program. It's called Writer's Boot Camp, and we ran a couple of programs through there. You know, the one thing I was familiar with from all that other time was how to put together a screenplay, how to put together a story.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

So And then catering.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

When all else fails, you can always bartend. And so as long as you know how to mix a drink, you can fall back onto something and I needed to do something. I started bartending and serving and working the front of house for catering company that eventually hired me to train their front of house people and coordinate their logistics. And I found out that catering is a lot like producing a movie. I had this discussion with Adam from Saltbreaker, Food Services Theater. But in an incredibly abbreviated timeline. Right. We were the kind of catering company that would go where there wasn't a dining room and a kitchen. And this was pretty high-end stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

I was looking at this company.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Well, our executive chef is fantastic. He still owns the company, really brought the level of food up and service up, and the we learned how to do bigger and better parties and still make sure that quality was good. So, like I said, it's a lot like producing a movie. You've got to come in there in the morning, get everything there, build a kitchen, build a dining room, and throw your event and then strike your event and get everybody out of there. You know, that production experience came in came into play. I think that I've always been kind of attracted to a chaotic environment because film television was like that. Catering is certainly like that. You have to make a plan, execute a plan, and then just throw the plan away. Right. What brought about move to Alameda? You know, my wife and I, we had just had our our second child. At that time, we had think about it in a really nice place to raise kids. Right. And this is a really nice place to it's a great place to be a kid. Exactly. It's like out of a 50s TV show sometimes. You can like ride your bike everywhere you need to go.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

You're in the catering, and then there was this uh slight medical event in 2020 that people may have been may have heard about. Pandemic was not real good for catering. So did that take you oh out of the business? Did the business shut down? What what caused that?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

The industry came to a screeching halt. The owners of the company that I worked for had to do what they had needed to do to keep the lights on. But we did social and corporate events, and almost within two or three days, the entire calendar get canceled. Sure. And at the same time, I have two young children who can't go to school. They're in first and third grade and they've got to be home all day. Like everybody else did. We set up the classroom in the living room and tried our best to keep everybody busy. And while this is all going on, I'm also, what am I gonna do next? Right. While all that's going on, I keep looking at this corner store over on Lincoln and Bay and the space that's available. And you know, I'm looking in the window, I'm looking in the window, it's unoccupied. I thought it could it could turn into something nice for the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

1200 Lincoln, you signed a lease June of 21. Store is called the old market spot. You live in that area.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

What was the vision? First reason was selfish. I wanted a cup of coffee. There's nowhere to get one. There was nowhere to get a sandwich. The convincing reason was that neighborhood when there was Pagano's hardware store there, when there was a the nursery across the street from Pagano's, there was a little bit more life, a little bit more activity. The area is called Bay Station. There wasn't really anything drawing the community together. It needs to be a place where people can see their neighbors, mug into their neighbors, meet their neighbors, maybe for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And if I'm recalling correctly, or whether it's the name or something, there's some family history with groceries back east.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

My grandfather had a small market from about 1930 to 1966 on the east side of Providence near Brown University called the Savoy Market. I was born in 1966, so I never was in the Savoy Market. My dad worked there when he when he was young, obviously, and my godfather. I just wanted to do a little nod to that, and we hope to bring kind of the same feeling. Just kind of off-handedly said to my wife one day, said if I ever do get a market, maybe I'll call it the Island Savoy Market. She said, That's a great idea. You should do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

And it is different because we have a lot of corner stores in Alameda, but frankly, most of them are convenience stores. And I half jokingly say to my wife, they're liquor stores with snacks. You have a true community market.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

That was our goal. You know, we had to make decisions as to what we are going to carry, what we weren't going to carry. Corner stores and convenience stores are great. They're very convenient. They're great things to have in your neighborhood. You know, everybody wants to have that market that you can run into. We were thinking that maybe we could do a little bit different with the food that we offered. We kind of came up with this mantra in the back of our heads. I was like, we want to minimize the amount of steps between you and your food. Don't want processed food, organic when there's always an organic equivalent. I'll give you one example is peanut butter. Great little Alameda aside. Spreadable peanut butter was right here. Right here. Came from Alameda. We get our peanut butter from the food mill in in Oakland. They've been grinding peanuts there since 1930. That's what's in the peanut butter. Peanuts, some salt. You know, that doesn't come from a big warehouse. It doesn't come from a big manufacturing facility. That comes from when I call and order peanut butter, they fill up 12 jars of peanut butter for me and I go and pick them up. That just feels like it's a better product to me. And that feels like something I want my kids to eat, something that I want to eat. And we try not to take that philosophy with all the choices that we make. There is a lot of unhealthy stuff in a lot of the foods that we eat and fast foods, and we all know this. There's too much sodium, there's too much high fructose corn syrup.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Well, and I see that even in treat foods that you carry in the store, we had Sky Paste from Allimeda Soda on. He's the first guy to admit, he says, I'm selling sugar water, but I'm going to make it as well as I can. And please only have 12 ounces at a time.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

And it's really good. Sugar water. It's phenomenal. It's really phenomenal. And we carry it. And as soon as they put it in a can, I was so excited I called Skye and was like, I want to get me the cans.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Because it used to only be on the fountain. And actually, it was funny on the show, Skye said he never wanted a can. Pandemic caused forced him to can.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

But it introduced that product to a wider audience. And it's, you know, I hope it's worked out. For them, I'd much rather have a product that's made a couple of miles from our store. There's no actual Dr. Pepper that I can say that's that's his stuff. It's really great place to tap into those kind of markets. We have the breweries that are here.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

By the way, thank you for selling single cans. I hate trying a four-pack of beer and get realize I don't like it. So I'll go down to Zavard. I've tried that one. I'll try that one. Well, good.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

But I mean, we have the advantage of having Faction and Almanac here. And in Jack London Square, there's some wonderful little places as well, Oakland United and uh original pattern. We've also been able to have those individuals in the store. Meet your food. Meet the person who made your food.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

One of the nicest things you do in the store, and it's it's a small gesture, but boy does it count for a lot, is that you have a little discount for people from Mastic Senior Center. Show your Mastic Senior Center card, get a little little bit off your cup of coffee. That is just sweet.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

They're great neighbors to have, and it's wonderful that we give people a meeting place to come after their class. And then we'll also run soup and sandwich specials and other things. So the Mastic folks will help us to inform their membership.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And we talk a lot on this show about the importance of the third space. And Island Savoy has very much become a third space for people, whether it's outside of the tables or inside, that that that is a place where people meet.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

It's really, really satisfying to us when people describe a market as a place they want to hang out, and we bribe their dogs, as you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

My dog will pull me into your store when I try to walk by.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah, I think I have one customer who, when it's time to take the dog for a walk, they just say Savoy and the dog runs to the front door. We learned that early on. That's fantastic. If the dogs drag you in that direction, then they know they're gonna get a treat there.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

You have been something of an incubator for another one of my favorite businesses. I remember you had a barista for a while, Michael, who now runs Arkea, which is a denim repair shop down on Webster, and he is a wizard with a needle and thread. Who knew he also made a good cup of coffee? How did you mind meeting Michael?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Michael is wonderful, and everybody in Alameda, whether you know it or not, you have had a cup of coffee made by Michael because he has work everywhere. I was just incredibly fortunate to meet Michael when I started because he taught me. The first latte I made was the day I bought the machine. Oh goodness. I was very fortunate enough to be able to work with Brendan Doherty at Signal. Michael came in one day and was looking for work, and then he taught me a lot how to create that flow. He was an art school graduate and a fashion student. That was his first passion. Couldn't be any happier that he found the space on Webster and has been able to open his shop there.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

By the way, congratulations on how you display your avocados. Three bins. Was it not now now or it's future avocado, today avocado, and not quite.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

So it's super helpful. Now you and I are both East Coast people. Want to talk your deli for a minute because your deli sandwiches do have that East Coast vibe. Gene Cahane of the Alameda Post literally profiled you solely on sandwich construction. He labeled me a sandwich artist. If you've never read the fourth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Arthur from the series winds up being a revered sandwich maker on a planet where he's stranded on.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

I'm glad that you referenced that because most people just don't understand what I mean when you read that chapter about him baking the bread and matching the bread with the sandwich and introducing the sandwich to an alien species. I think of it often. I do think of it often, and it's funny that you would bring it up. But anybody who knows me knows that hitchhikers was formative.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I love this quote from the Gene Cahane article. Now you're getting into sandwich philosophy, which is way beyond step-by-step instructions. It's about where the cheese goes on a hot sandwich as opposed to a cold one. It's about how you slice the lettuce to allow the dressing to permeate through the thick things below. Thinly slicing a red onion so the flavor is subtle, not overpowering. You know how they say you practice law or medicine, even if you've been doing so for decades? Sandwiches are like that too. You can spend a lifetime practicing the art, yet always come up with something new. That's a level of sandwich I appreciate.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Thank you. Thank you. It's not putting something between two slices of bread. Where the cheese goes does make a difference. You gotta melt cheese over everything. You don't melt the cheese and then put something on top of it. I tell my stomach, the cheese is a blanket. You're tucking the sandwich in in a blanket, you're making it cozy.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I'm born in New York. My mother raised me on a steady diet of Rubens. You have one of the best pastrami sandwiches on the island. Well, thank you. First of all, that's a wonderful thing to say. My mom, who was born in New York, just moved out here two months ago, and I served her one of your pastrami sandwiches, and her eyes lit up. And she's judgy on these things.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

First of all, you we you gotta be selective about the pastrami that you use. We've had really good fortune of working with a couple of different people. Unfortunately, when you work with small artisans, sometimes the availability changes based on their schedule. Sure. You know, I got the opportunity to work with Dash over at Pyro Pastrami, who was very generous in selling me a few briskets every production cycle, but eventually got to the point where he's like, I can't produce enough from my sandwiches. What I like about the El Capitan, I think what makes it is the coleslaw, because it's a very crispy, cold coleslaw. There's a mouthfeel to it. And again, we are selective about the bread. The bread is also from Alameda from Semi Freddy's. I had some culinary assistance in creating that coleslaw. It's a signature that we have. And I think that just the balance of those flavors, and we load it up.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

As my wife and I have a category of foods, we say, how is it? It's great, it's not first date food because you will look messy while you are eating.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Well, yeah, yeah. It is a difficult, definitely a difficult sandwich to eat. And then the cousin sandwich is the Grandpa Dave with the corned beef and the sauerkraut, which is a more traditional Reuben. But I think what makes that is the choice of sauerkraut, which is a thing that I never liked until I tried the stuff that we use on the sandwich. And then and it was like this goes perfect. I think that if you can get an East Coaster to give you a thumbs up on your pastrami and your Italian combo and your meatballs, then you're doing okay. That's the sandwich cornerstone to me. And people love our club too, and the club's great, but the delis that I remember in Rhode Island, every pizza place made up meatball sub. Oh, yeah. And they put it in the oven, in the pizza oven, and melted the cheese over it. That's a meatball sub.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

My daughter went to a suburban private school in Georgia, and they were going on a trip to New York, and they got the pre-order for the deli. I don't know if you were which of the famous deli they were going, might have been stage for, I don't remember New York. And she showed me the list and I looked at her and said, if you order the turkey, I am disowning you. And and she also got the the whole field trip turned onto the egg cream, and that's a whole nother supplementary. That's a whole nother thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I'm yeah, there are there are there are areas I don't feel educated enough to go into cheesesteaks, egg creams, yeah, those are other things. And then of course, what we grew up calling the meatball sandwich was a grinder. They call them it grinders in Rhode Island because that was a New Hampshire term. I want to lay claim to that being a Rhode Island term that maybe New Hampshire picked up on. Okay, that's fair. Because grinder as it's as it's properly pronounced.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

No, New Hampshire had the weirdest take for soda. Tonic.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Super regional. You would see that hot oven grinder on every sign of every mom and pop pizza place.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, in the insert name of town house of pizza. I get a kick out of some of your one-offs. I'm still like because it kicks up on my Facebook memories. A year or so ago, you had one weekend, you had too much bacon or too much avocado, and you did this bacon avocado toast thing in the morning. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, I got to do that again.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

You do. What killed me is I lived closer at the time, walking down Bay Street with the bacon coming out.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

That was torture. Yeah, when we when we cook the bacon in the morning, sometimes it gets about a half a block away. I would love to be able to do a little bit more in the original food offerings. I think we're still growing. I think we're still identifying what the community wants from us. And that's really kind of an important part of our mission as well. That's really how a small business survives. One of the nice things about being a grocery store and having some prepared food is you can go to your produce section and you can say, okay, what do I have to use right away? Right. So we went to the produce section. If there's a half a case of avocados here that has to be used, and we have this wonderful bread that Trevor at Night Heron Bakery makes, they work so well together. We it was perfect. We did that and we should do it more. But it involves a whole lot more labor than a lot of people think.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

And you've sort of unintentionally become the anchor of what I like to call the the hidden foodie gem of the island. And that's that section of Lincoln. You've got El Caballo wraps, AM Oriental Grocery, Kraft Chocolates, U, Whisk Cake Creations, and if you just walk one more half block, you're at Forbidden Island. That is an amazing stretch of incredible food.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

I like that Bay Station is becoming, you know, maybe a destination.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

A little hint for folks who may be on the other side of Gene Sweeney Park, now that the cut throughs are through the park, we're talking walking distance now. It's it's it's easy.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Great craft chocolate made right there. Henry at Wisp does amazing stuff. It's an honor to be on that list. Thank you. Yours is not an easy business. What are the challenges about? We are very much challenged by today's economy. Okay. Things are expensive. Groceries are expensive. And people have to make those choices every day of stretching their dollar, making those decisions as to not only what products are they going to feed their family, but where are they going to get them? And you know, we're facing just stiff pricing competition from big markets. Local businesses across the island are all feeling this, no matter what they're doing, whether they're a restaurant, whether they're a retail store or service. They're all feeling it. Everybody that I'm talking to is seeing a drop in sales and and in frequenting local businesses. So we really do need the community support. I mean, that's the biggest challenge is retaining customers and really communicating with customers, like I had said a little earlier, to find out like well, what is it that you do want from your corner store? Because a lot of people, you know, just need a gallon of milk every now and then or a cup of coffee in the morning, and that's great. But if we can help provide you with some other things, we need that feedback. We love talking to people. We love that they love talking to us. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

If you could give one message to uh members of the community, the one thing you would just say, hey, we could use your help in blank.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

I think I could speak for every small business in the community is just the reminding people that when you support a small business in your community, you're keeping money in your community, you're keeping uh the vitality in your community, you're keeping jobs in your community. I had mentioned peanut butter a little earlier, and it's an analogy that I like to use. You can make a peanut butter sandwich, you can buy a loaf of wonder bread, you can buy a jar of Skippy, and you can buy a jar of Welsh's. Right. And all of that that you've just spent has left the island. Yeah, it's gone. You could come over to me and you can spend a little bit more to get a peanut butter that's made within five miles of here, and a jam that's made by Alameda Jam Company, or that's my jam, and bread that's baked here on the island. Right. And you've just enriched four businesses that have an investment in your community, employ people in your community. Right. And make it in general, make it a better place. Right. When you make a decision as to what where am I gonna go, what am I gonna where am I gonna buy, whether it's to go to you know Starbucks or Signal, just know that the people who who live in your community who own these businesses or invested in your community, all of those resources stay here and make Alameda better. If these places start closing, Alameda's gonna have a different feel to it.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Right. And I think one of the great appeals of Alameda, and actually appeals to my small town New England upbringing, is the presence of the local vendor in whatever it is. I have a natural inclination to avoid chains. It's it it was it was just birthed into me. And what you're talking about to me is very, very important. Very important. Speaking of local providers, the question that everybody on the show gets. Oh, okay. You've got company coming in from out of town, you have to take them to three meals at three different restaurants. It can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, it can be three breakfasts, it can be bites and notches. What three restaurants are you gonna take those visitors to? And you can't include yourself. Adam at Saltbreaker got mad at me when I told him he's gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

I would think that for breakfast, we're gonna do each meal. Is that what we're gonna do? Take us through a day. You can you can do how to do it. And take you out to gym's on the course. Great. I love it. There's something about the patio at Gyms on the Course that just says Sunday breakfast to me. Very good. The place on Lincoln is also a classic. I like the outdoor seating.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

And it's always good. Okay, I can't say myself, so that's a g it's a given.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Your place is a given, so where else are you going?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I know I would end up getting Scolari's burger at almanac.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Okay, very good.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Must be something about sitting outside.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

It makes the food taste better.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

You get a double hit there because you get the burger and fries and you get the beer. Right. And it's all, again, still almanac. Since Adam couldn't pick saltbreaker, I'll pick Saltbreaker. A nice place to have dinner, and they make a really good Manhattan.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Their cocktail staff is on point. And if you're out there this summer, try the cruel summer. It's a seasonal cocktail they just came up with. It's delicious.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I will have to give it a try, but but but I respect the good Manhattan with a good rye.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Love it. Let's talk uh store hours because there's sort of three sets of hours. There's the store, there's the deli, and there's the cafe. So we'll tell people when they can come by.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Eight o'clock every morning we are open for the coffee and market is open. Our coffee bar stays open the latest on the island till five o'clock. So if you need that shot of espresso between three and five and everybody else is closed, we are still there.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I am an afternoon coffee person and I am grateful.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yes, yes. You go you start that crash about three o'clock. Our deli is 10 30 to 3 30 every day. Phone in your order, we'll have it ready for you. We do something I probably don't advertise well enough, but we do do picnic lunches. Oh do. We do catering. We can deliver box lunches to your office, sandwich platters, charcuterie boards. We do all of that kind of fun stuff too. And then the market is open till 6 30 uh during the week and six o'clock on weekends. All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Uh website socials, how people can keep up.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Instagram. Check us out on Instagram. That's where we do all of our updates.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Mike Stevens, owner of Island Savoy Market at 1200 Lincoln here in Alameda. Thank you so much for spending time with us this morning on the Alameda Connection.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Thank you very much. Really appreciate being invited on.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Take care. Thanks again to Mike Stevens, the owner of Island Savoy Market, for spending time with us this morning here on the Alameda Connection. You can find Island Savoy Market at 1200 Lincoln Avenue. That's on the south side of Lincoln, just in between Bay Street and Sherman Street, less than a block away from the Mastic Senior Center. The best way to keep up with what's going on at Island Savoy is through their Instagram account. That's Island Savoy Market. Spell Savoy S-A-V-O-Y. You can also find them using that very same handle on Facebook. We didn't get to it during our time together, but Mike also stocks a great little selection of locally made gift items from when you need that something special. Looking ahead to next Sunday, everybody knows the famous 2003 Jack Black film School of Rock. But did you know that The School of Rock existed 25 years before that movie came out? What started as a single music education location in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1998 has now grown to almost 500 locations around the world. And one of them is right here in Alameda. My guest next week is Suzanne Sparr, the owner and general manager of School of Rock Alameda. We'll talk about how a career and life change led her to open Alameda's School of Rock, how her innovative design for the space has actually changed the look of School of Rock, and why the benefits to students go well beyond simply learning how to play an instrument. That's Suzanne Sparr, the owner and general manager of School of Rock Alameda, next week on the Alameda Connection. To catch up on any episodes you may have missed, head to the show's YouTube channel at the Alameda Connection. To keep up with the latest from the show, you'll want to follow us on Instagram at Alameda Connection. If you have an idea for a guest for a future episode, please send me an email. That email address is Alamedaconnection at gmail.com. And if you think you're a good candidate, let me know. Thanks as always to the California Historical Radio Society, located at 2152 Central Avenue, for providing our location for this week's sit down with Mike Stevens. And as I do every week, a big thank you to guitarist Bill Hart for our theme music. The song is Beachside Isle, and it's from his album, Watch the Sky. I'm Scott Peeler. I'll connect with you again next Sunday, the Alameda Connection on KCSMHD 2.