kartooner

There’s just some­thing about a local, mom and pop mar­ket that evokes that “home­town” feel­ing of nos­tal­gia that you don’t get from larger super­mar­ket chains. There’s also some stark dif­fer­ences between the shop­ping expe­ri­ence, mostly involv­ing cus­tomer ser­vice and atmosphere.

It’s kind of sad that most small­town gro­cery mar­kets have gone the way of the dodo because of larger super­mar­kets dom­i­nat­ing an area. Less than 70 years ago, it was com­mon­place to do your gro­cery shop­ping at a local gro­cer and in many cases these small mar­kets would offer home delivery.

If you felt so inclined to walk into the store, you might’ve been greeted whole­somely by the owner, who behind the scenes worked hard to keep his store afloat amongst the com­pe­ti­tion. How­ever, in those days your com­pe­ti­tion wasn’t a mega-ultra-supreme-deluxe super­mar­ket with auto­matic doors, self-checkout and 24-hour ser­vice. Rather, your com­peti­tor was Joe Smith’s Gro­ceries and Pet Food just down the way a cou­ple blocks, past the Bap­tist church, across the street from McBrod­er­ick Broth­ers Pharmacy.

Instead of going to my reg­u­lar super­mar­ket, that mega-ultra-supreme-deluxe store with auto­matic doors, self-checkout and 24-hour ser­vice, I decided to pay homage to yes­ter­year and visit one of the only remain­ing small-town gro­cers in East Rochester, NY. Since we’re small enough to be con­sid­ered a vil­lage, accord­ing to the city, this mar­ket is called The Vil­lage Fair.

Ear­lier in the week I hap­pened upon an ad for The Vil­lage Fair in which they were adver­tis­ing deli meat for $1.99/lb. A steal in my book con­sid­er­ing I gen­er­ally pay about $5.00/lb. and in this house­hold we like (or, I should say I like) sand­wiches so we stock up on the fixings.

My first thought upon enter­ing the store was that it was pretty small. I guess I’m used to super­mar­kets being on aver­age the size of 3 foot­ball fields. The Vil­lage Fair is prob­a­bly only about the size of a typ­i­cal retail space, which is to say they jam­pack the mar­ket with all sorts of things.

While they have a lot of items, I wasn’t sur­prised when I noticed that many brand named items were replaced by generic food brands, sev­eral of which I never heard of in my life. No wor­ries since a box of Kel­logs cereal aver­ages about $2.99, wherein these generic cere­als cost about a dol­lar less. I then scoped out the place, keep­ing note of the aes­thet­ic­ness and over­all feel­ing of atmosphere.

I was stunned when some­one asked me how my day was going and whether on not I needed help find­ing any­thing. I can’t recall a time in my usual super­mar­ket when some­one asked if I needed help find­ing some­thing. More often than not I’d be on the witch hunt for a floater or stocker to ask them where an item was. In this case it was nice to have some­one approach me for a change, some­thing you don’t see in Best Buy, Tar­get or any of the larger chains unless you’re hav­ing a lucky day.

After load­ing my cart with the usu­als (bread, milk and cheese), I scooted to the front to check­out. The lady behind the counter smiled proudly and for once it didn’t seem forced or fake for that mat­ter. Rather, it seemed geni­une and pleas­ant and to be hon­est it threw me off guard since I’m used to lit­tle social inter­ac­tion, save for the unusual occassion.

The only dis­ad­van­tages that I could see shop­ping at local mar­kets is whether or not you trust their pric­ing schemes and the fact that they have a lim­ited selec­tion of items. For instance, I noticed that while some things were marked down in com­par­i­son to super­mar­ket prices, other items were slightly higher so as keep a balance.

Over­all, it was an expe­ri­ence that I wouldn’t mind going through again. It was kind of neat to take a step back to a time when cus­tomer ser­vice was at the fore­front of shop­ping expe­ri­ences, and that’s exactly what they were in yes­ter­year, expe­ri­ences and not just park­ing, rush­ing in and rush­ing out.