Place: Burger King
Lunch: Whopper combo with onion rings (no tomato, no lettuce), zesty sauce, four chicken nuggets, Coke
My little bedroom community became seemingly less little yesterday when Hy-Vee, a Midwestern supermarket chain, opened their new 92,000 square-foot behemoth of a store a half mile from the Townhouse of Solitude.
Yay, I guess.
I'm not a big Hy-Vee fan. It was twenty-some years ago when I first moved into Hy-Vee territory. Their stores were like real traditional supermarkets, something that had been lost in favor of warehouse formats where I'd moved from. They had big red block signage that spanned the length of the store front that said "HY-VEE FOOD STORE", as if they felt the need to point out they sold food. They had a great funky logo that had "Hy-Vee" in the silhouette of a shopping cart. Their jingle tag line was a fifties-campy "where there's a helpful smile in every aisle". Prices were reasonable, staff was courteous, and their store brand mac and cheese was awesome and often found on sale for a quarter a box. Very cool when you're in radio and barely making $13,000 a year. You could get in, get your stuff, and get out easily. And they had a small corner "deli" that served a 99 cent breakfast (2 slices of bacon, 2 eggs, and toast) that was always popular.
Things started changing quickly after I discovered them, though. New management was taking over on the executive level. Store size increased through the 1990's, as did the number of departments. Interior decor packages became less and less interesting. The shopping cart logo and kitschy "HY-VEE FOOD STORE" signage gave way to a not so impressive new font designed specifically for them. Bigger and blander seemed to be the theme. The little deli evolved into a food court situation with Italian and Chinese food stations. The store opened yesterday is the second in the chain to have a full-service sit-down restaurant and bar, not to mention wood-fired pizza, sushi, and gelato. And prices? Not so reasonable anymore. Through the roof, actually.
The Hy-Vee brand isn't just limited to supermarkets. They have Hy-Vee Gas, which is your typical convenience store, usually but not exclusively located in front of Hy-Vee supermarkets. Ours opened months before the big store even started construction. I DO like these. They have cheap fountain sodas and Eisenberg hot dogs. There's also Hy-Vee Drugstores (formerly known as Drug Town). And now there's Hy-Vee Mainstreet, a smaller format neighborhood grocery they seem to still be working the kinks out of.
(By the way, why do Hy-Vee's convenience stores only operate from 5am-11pm, even when the stores they're on the frontage of are open 24 hours?)
Anyway, I checked out the new store last night. I'd say every one of their six hundred employees (NOT an exaggeration) were there, as well as roughly half the population of the western suburbs. The new employees all had on the helpful smiles and were roaming every aisle like you'd expect at any well run grand opening. In a week or two, I"m sure they'll be back to the normal mediocre service.
The store is nice and big and has lots of stuff. Especially pre-made stuff. This part of the store is just massive. Pizza. Chinese. Every comfort food you can possibly imagine. Deli meats. Sandwiches. Fried chicken. Meatballs. Available hot or pre-packaged cold to re-heat at home. Yes, we have become a society that goes to the market to buy LEFTOVERS.
The Seafood counter is amazing. They had the usual fishy suspects plus more exotic stuff like fresh red snapper...including a WHOLE one...in the display case. They had a seafood party platter built on the body of a FISH. Between the head and tail. THIS is presentation, people.
The rest of the store was...well...Hy-Vee. The prices on stuff I buy ran around 20-50 percent higher than comparable prices at Walmart, Target, or Fareway. I even found something in the organic section 20 percent higher than the same item at Whole Foods. WHOLE FOODS, PEOPLE. And they have the smallest selection of ramen and cup-o-noodles type stuff I've ever seen.
Still, they might get some of my business out of convenience. They are open 24 hours, so I can run over to get that one little ingredient I'm missing to make cookies at four in the morning. They're only one of two grocery stores along my evening commute, and Hy-Vee doesn't involve any left turns in or out, whereas the other one does. And that seafood counter is too awesome to not shop at.
So what did I buy last night? Fried chicken? A wood-fired pizza? A nice halibut fillet? Some deep sea scallops?
A box of Hy-Vee mac and cheese.
Sixty-eight cents.
It's still pretty good.
