Popular strawberry stand on Saratoga Ave. resumes business this season

Right off Saratoga Avenue across the street from Valero gas station, a white, A-Frame sign reading “Today’s Pick” sits in front of a red tent. On a typical weekday, a few people gather under the shade, standing before an assortment of kettle corn, fresh avocados, tangelos (a mix between a tangerine and orange) and deliciously red strawberries.

Some of them hand $8 to a jolly older man behind the table and leave with three baskets of strawberries in a brown paper bag. As they pull away from the curb, he gives them a warm smile, waving them goodbye.

“My favorite part of the job is talking to people,” said the “strawberry man” Ronald Castro. “Give me a [strawberry] box and I’ll talk all day.”

Every spring and summer, the strawberry stand on 12625 Saratoga Ave. resumes business, and Castro sells strawberries to dozens of people daily.

Castro’s cousin, Doug Rodrigues, had been the owner of the Saratoga strawberry stand for five years before he employed Castro 10 years ago. Since then, Castro and other employed drivers have helped Rodrigues run the business, making daily trips to their Uesugi farm’s strawberry plants in Gilroy and Prunedale to pick the ripened fruits.

The kettle corn comes from a supplier in Gilroy who pops it fresh. As for the avocados and tangelos, Castro and the other employees pick those right from Rodrigues’s backyard, right behind the stand.

“People know they’re fresh, and you can see how sweet these are,” Castro said, offering a sample. “We had a load this morning of only 22 flats, and I sold them by about 12:15 p.m. These just got here at 1:15 p.m., so these were still on the plant about two hours ago.”

People throughout the community come to buy the stand’s “fresh, deliciously sweet” strawberries, Castro said. The business doesn’t even have to advertise because people hear about the strawberries by word of mouth.

“The product sells itself; the business is just excellent. In fact, I’m so popular, I may run for mayor of Saratoga,” Castro joked with a hearty laugh.

At this time in the beginning of the season, the strawberries are in low production, and Castro and the other drivers can only pick about 20 to 30 flats a trip. But because the strawberries are in such high demand, Castro said their drivers often have to make two trips to the plants every day.

When the weather warms and more berries start to grow, Rodrigues will send a driver down at 5 a.m., who will start picking at 6; by 9 or 10 in the morning, they will be ready to start selling a day’s worth of strawberries.

Besides the fruits themselves, the strawberry stand business also takes pride in being people-oriented, getting to know customers personally. Castro often shakes hands with and introduces himself to his customers.

Castro said he loves being around customers, socializing and “chatting up a storm.” At his previous job as the manager of the United Parcel Service (UPS), his younger employees became so comfortable around him that they called him “Uncle Ron.”

After retiring from his job at the UPS, Castro was grateful to get a job where he could help out his cousin while still interacting with other people on a daily basis. Castro tries to remember his customers’ names, especially the names of loyal customers like sophomore Caroline Chen and her mom who come year after year.

“I like the strawberries because they are always really sweet,” Chen said. “And my mom has had conversations with the strawberry man, and she said that he is really friendly and nice.”

As an incentive to socialize even more, Castro and another employee currently have a contest to see who can get the most hugs this season.

“So far, I’ve gotten four hugs and he’s gotten two,” Castro said while smiling proudly. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season goes, in terms of sales and hugs.”