Just So You Know

The Store

It’s been forever since I went to The Store. My mom used to shop there all the time when we lived up on 3080 East because it was the closest grocery. I remember it being a neighborhood grocery store where they would call when Mom’s Finnish Rye bread arrived and they would grind liver for Maksilatiko for her. The cashiers knew her by name and trusted her to come back and pay for things without leaving one of us as a hostage (my sister Kat got to stay at more gas stations while Mom ran for her wallet). The Store closed its 2700 East location years ago; another victim of the chain store supermarkets. I thought they were gone for good until I moved to the South Valley and found one on 6400 South. It seems they’ve found a niche to keep them alive in the face of the Walmart and other superstore assaults - - specialty items.
When I first married, we had a small grocery near the apartment run by a butcher. I could get fat trimmed from steaks, dog bones, soup bones (big difference between the two), and the T-bones were to die for. The other items were too expensive there so I went to the superstore for everything else. But being on the other side of the city, the meat wasn’t worth the gas and time it would cost to go there.
The Store has a butcher, a baker, and a confectioner. Not to mention specialty items from all over the world. It’s a dangerous place. I got German chocolates, New Zealand honey, Fresh English muffins with Bitter orange marmalade from Switzerland, milk from cows who never got BGH, and the fresh Tomato soup that I stopped for in the first place. I could go broke shopping there daily but once in a while, it’s nice to give yourself a treat. I wonder if they would grind liver for me. I would expect to have a cleaning fee tacked on just like they did for my mother.

posted by Shondratasha @ 13:58