Dean’s Produce

Fresh, everything is fresh and very suitable prices. Love their Greek cheese! and you can about everything you need if you are shopping Mediterranean or Middle Eastern Food.

Excellent selection of low cost/​high quality produce. The store is kinda hidden and obviously parking can be tough, since this is the Burlingame Ave of Millbrae and clearly this is where the rubber meets the road.
I’ve been in at least a dozen times and this most recent visit brought me to something that I’ve become quite intrigued by. Fresh jam. Yes, fresh jam! I know, I should have covered this part of the foodie aisle years ago, but I was reminded of the PB&J crustless sandwiches of my childhood and never wanted to relive those moments. Until now. I picked up a jar of fresh blueberry jelly and slathered some over an English muffin with Almond butter and boy oh boy was it delicious!
I also noticed that they offer some exotic fruits that typical grocery stores don’t offer all that much. Items such as:
Papaya
Young coconut
Bitter melon
Dragon fruit
Durian (stanky stank fruit I think)
and so so many others
I wanna visit more often, but I find myself at Safeway far too often. Maybe, just maybe, I can visit this spot weekly and feel better about myself when I sit down to enjoy a sliver of dragon fruit.

Best place to buy fruits and veggies in Millbrae. They also have a good selection of canned pickles, veggies and fish. There’s an Eastern European/​Middle Eastern influence, which I love.

There is way more variety and fresh produce here than the other local Asian markets. However, it’s hard to beat the quality and prices at the nearby Farmer’s market on Saturdays or the Safeway Down the street sometimes. If you want middle eastern ingredients, this is the place to go.
Parking is ample on the street or nearby lots. The cashiers are extremely helpful and nice. They’ll even give you a box to carry your groceries if you don’t want to pay for the bags.

A much better place to go for produce than Safeway or Lucky’s. Although those places may have more variety, Dean’s has harder-​to-​find fruits and vegetables, like passion fruit and guava, and everything is at a lower price. I always walk away surprised at how little my groceries cost. In addition to produce, they also carry dry goods, a wide variety of spices (seriously, almost any spice you’d want for dirt cheap prices – whole cardamon, dried hibiscus, fennel seeds, etc.), and certain Mediterranean/​Middle Eastern/​Asian goods. I like to get kalamata olives and feta cheese here for my salads. If they had meat, this would be my one-​stop shop.

OMG! I LOVE DEAN’S!!! I would call Dean’s a produce and import shop (mostly European). There are two corners of the store filled with produce that is all fresh and very high quality. This place is close to my work and I stop by and grab fruit and veggies to share — everyone loves it! I have a few coworkers who grew up rurally on farms and they even say this stuff is fresh and good. It’s near Burlingame so you’d expect the prices to be ridiculous but actually sometimes they beat out Safeway on price (and always in quality). They are the only ones who sold raw peanuts for boiling during that season. In addition to the produce they also have European sausages, chocolates, teas from all over the world, honeys, kefir, imported packaged cookies and an area of fresh nuts and a few freshly baked items from nearby places. I am missing a lot of things, you need to go inside and check this place out. I’ll be in the cookie aisle.

What???
No.
Today’s purchases: went directly into the garbage!!!
Daikon, spoiled and or completely moldy inside (?)
Melon, inedible and crunchy, dry and mealy.
See my photo.
I don’t see why people flock to this place, Dean should get some standards.
Too far away to go and complain, and can’t serve daikon oroshi w my saba shio yaki tonight. Lame.

Love coming here for the German chocolate and the specialty items that they carry. Slightly more than I usually spend on food so i go there very seldom.

Be very aware if your cashier is the young chinese girl that barely speaks english. She’s a recent hire and doesn’t know her produce.
I had a basket of vegetables and fruits which ended up to be $ 47. Feeling a little weird, I decided to look through the receipt as I walked out the door. I had stuff on the list that I didn’t buy, and stuff that I did buy weren’t on the list.
Didin’t buy but was charged:
* Asparagus — 3.58lbs @ $ 2.99/lb = $ 10.70.
* Apricot — 4.21lbs @ $ 0.99/lb = $ 4.17
Just those two items was close to $ 15 bucks of overcharging.
Not sure how she even got those weight on the scale when those items don’t exist in my basket. Weird?
Also there was another instance where I asked why they didn’t carry «Double Happiness» oranges. The same lady told me they do. I looked at the oranges that she pointed to, it was some «Naval» brand which doesn’t taste as good. I said it wasn’t the same thing, she said «trust me, it’s the same.» UHH OK! Btw, all said and done in cantonese.
Mr. Dean, I hope you get rid of this girl. She’s doing you no good, and you may loose customers. You can check the below info if you need to track which employee it was. I have their name on the receipt as well.
Receipt date– 6÷24÷15
Time– 17:09:08
Term– 1
Store– 1
Trx– 374

Arrogant and unfriendly staff. I prefer safeway to this store.

I fell in love with this store as soon as I moved to Millbrae a few months ago. I stop by almost daily on my home. The selection is great, the produce is fresh, and I can get everything I need and be out of the store within 5 mins. Can’t say that for any of the other major chains that are just down the block from Dean’s. I love this place. I am not sure what other reviewers are referring to when they say it could be cleaner — it’s a well kept store with gorgeous varied produce. In addition to all this the fresh produce is priced very competitively.

4 star overall. Very nice and fresh fruits, very good prices and selection of imported items. But:
Just stay way from some Bologna they sell bought it two times and threw it out Bologna German Doctorskaya by Russkie Kolbasy. No info who/​where is that producer. There is no expiration on this product, asked stuff, got OK answer, it looked OK too, went to garbage right after opening, all sleeky and fell apart + smell too strong for Bologna, I’m not sure how they can do this… very scary, anybody control such small stores in US ?
will see them to get refund and post updates.
Mario

I love this little local place. Good produce prices, parking, nice folks working there. I also love their international items like Russian dark rye bread, seledka, semechki, tushenka, sprats in oil, pelmeni, Canadian sour cream, etc. In addition, they have a very nice selection of spices for a very reasonable, I would say, cheap price. The only thing is that I wish the aisles were slightly wider to make it easier to navigate for those of us with strollers

Um, am I missing something here?
I had high expectations for this location, given the # of reviews… but compared to its San Mateo counterpart, it just really doesn’t stand up to par. First of all, their produce options are very limited (where were the avocados??), and they seem to place more of an emphasis on their internationally imported items like canned goods and whatnots. Also, the produce doesn’t look very clean and the store itself isn’t organized as nicely.
Everything here just looks so drab and unclean — not what I expected at all. I now trek down to San Mateo just to visit that location, as it is MUCH cleaner and the selection of produce is way better/​fresher.

Dean’s is such a gem and probably my favorite shop in Millbrae. Their selection of exotic and regular produce is pretty comprehensive & their prices are cheap! They beat any Safeway or Whole Foods easily. The produce is high quality and fresh. I was able to pick up mangosteen, lychee, Hawaiian papaya, and a variety of tomatoes in one stop. It’s a good place to stop by often because they offer in-​season produce and the variety the you can choose from is extensive. They also have plenty of snacks that you can’t find at most other places like the KinderSurprise chocolate eggs — which my kids really love.

Every Sunday, I look forward to my weekly Dean’s trip. They have a phenomenal selection of inexpensive, high quality produce and ethnic groceries.
If you are looking for specialty items, Dean’s will most likely have it!

When we lived in Millbrae, we frequented this grocery store. I loved it because the produce is so fresh and less expensive than Safeway that’s just down the street. The produce is exceptionally fabulous in the summer. :) Employees are ok. Not super friendly like other stores but decent.
They also have exotic desserts and foods from different countries too. Bread from Sheng Kee, Kinder and Milka chocolates, baklava, etc. Fun place to explore. Great fresh produce at great prices. Wish there was something similar near our new residence. Dean’s Produce and Sprouts are my faves for fresh, inexpensive produce.

Ive been shopping at the newer one in San Mateo for a while now. Only been to this one a couple times. It was a nice day and we were eating in the area. Lots of good product but the unique things are the Greek and other European items you dont see in your average markets. A place where i can regularly get my Borjomi water!

While roaming asking Millbrae, I stumbled upon Dean’s. The outside produce seemed to be reasonably prices well and looked good for the most part. When you step inside, you’ll be surprised to find out this is a more ethnic grocery store then both the outside and the name implies. I believe they’re leaving more towards Italian, but they also some Asian items in stock.
The one thing that bugged me a little was the fact that they didn’t have any milk and the price of their half gallons were the price of regular gallon milk, although they were Clover brand which tend to be a bit pricy. Not sure if it was organic or not, but if it is, I can understand the price hike.
Great neighborhood grocery store located in downtown Millbrae and a must go to after you’ve finished eating at one of the many restaurants around the area.

I usually come here for my weekly fruits and veggies shopping.
Produce is fresh and clean. Same with the fruits as well.
They do have middle eastern products as well (cheese, olive oil, breads, etc…)
This is the only place where I buy my honey from as well!
Once in a blue moon, they do have rare tropical fruits which I am very lucky to find.
Price is reasonable as well. Wish the store was a little bit more cleaner though.