dead : sunnyside market
september 19, 2007 @
10:20
link
Last weekend our little Sunnyside Market officially went down in a blaze of buyout glory courtesy of the Russell T. Lund empire. It'd been a tumultuous couple of weeks leading up to the actual closing, as rumors and speculation blew through the neighborhood like an angry tornado, flipping over Volvos and scattering speculation and misinformation in its wake. They were closing?! The building was going to be vacant? For 2 years?! What about the workers? Kowalski's wanted it, too? What's Lund's going to do with it? Empty? Warehouse? New Lund's? Year round fresh cut fry booth?! (As hard as I tried, that one never stuck.)
Mass emails were sent, public "hearings" were scheduled, The People were mobilized... it was all very enthusiastic and honest and sincere. There was talk of boycotting and yard signs and impact analysis studies and "is this even legal?" and all sorts of stuff, though oddly no hunger strikes, a move that would have been at once ironic and [apparently] trendy, but in retrospect, maybe a little too Linden Hills for us.
I took the opening and briefly attempted to socialize the idea of a formal public booing, where we'd all go down to Lund's HQ and stand outside their front door and boo. It's a form of public protest I've been brainstorming a way to get back into society since I saw those doofs pushing strollers down the Vegas strip at 11:30 at night and I thought to myself "why aren't we all booing these morons?". My idea went over well with most people, but it never built enough momentum to justify setting something formal up, much less alerting the media or making signs or shirts or getting megaphones to make sure our disgruntled chorus could be heard all the way up in the executive washroom. But man, that would have been sweet. Someday, my warriors, someday.
Then a day or two went by and the lawyerish types in the 'hood pointed out that [surprise] these private businesses can kind of do what they want when it comes to this type of thing. And people realized that Lund's is much too awesome of a store to boycott and come on, Sunnyside was a pretty lousy store with expensive crappy produce, overpriced staples, reasonable meat, and an ok rotisserie chicken. So while it's fine to be pissed that it's gone because when you needed hamburger buns or milk it was only 3 blocks away - or because you don't want it sitting there vacant - it's overselling it a wee to tell teary-eyed stories about people starving because they'll have to walk an extra block to the co-op or the Lunds@50th to buy better, and in many cases cheaper, food. And that's when everyone just kinda calmed down and the issue sorta dropped off the radar. Go figure.
Late last week Sunnyside had a pretty good 'going out of business' sale. Lots of stuff 50% off. LOTS of mustard. Way more than I would have expected. We didn't buy much - basically nothing, actually - but we did buy an ornament from the huge pile of Christmas decorations they drug out from some back store room. I thought that was funny.
In two years their lease is up and Nostradoodle predicts we'll go through it all again. Book it.
Sunnyside Market set to close [swjournal]
Lunds pays to keep Kowalski's at bay [strib]
Libby thought:
so my big beef (pun included? you decide) is that a grocery store within walking distance was one of the reasons i wanted to stay in this neighborhood. now it's gone. if you think that lund's is within walking distance, with 2 kids in tow, you are greatly mistaken. i would love to say that i'll be boycotting lund's but that would be a bunch of big talk. wave arms wildly.
dave thought:
i'm with you on the proximity issue, and i think i acknowledged it above.
does this mean we have to move again? because i'm totally not up for that.
Kathie thought:
If you all are indeed worried about the employees (or as you put it 'the workers', how egalitarian of you) then you should know that if Kowalski's had bought them out, the employees totally lost their jobs. Kowalski's policy is to not hire any employees of any stores they buy. But Lunds does hire the former employees as they did in this case. Their idea is that it is a good thing to hire employees for many reasons, one of which is that it is not the employees fault that their employer was bought out and they should not have to pay with their jobs. Besides, these are already experienced, qualified people. Seems so much more like the kind of store I'd prefer to buy from.
Now, if you are truly concerned about the people, then boycotting Lunds directly affects those employees you claim concern over.
dave thought:
i'm thinking the boycott talk was more a knee-jerk response to "buying out then shutting down the corner grocery store to prevent the competition from moving in" than "will the employees all get jobs at lunds". it's a "we'll show them, we'll shop the competition anyway" thing. but hey, that's just my take. feel free to keep painting with your broad brush however you see fit.
i didn't realize kowalksi's official policy would have been to refuse to hire any of the sunnyside employees. i'll look into that. seriously, i will. because it seems like a bad business decision, and kowalski's doesn't come off like a business run by dumbasses.
btw, "you all". that's cute. kinda makes my socialist wordplay seem quaint.
Scott McGerik thought:
I wish I had those type of issues to deal with in my neighborhood.
Let me take that back.
Actually, I just wish I had a Bylerly's or Lunds in my neighborhood. Knowlan's with its indifferent employees and RC Dicks with its cramped aisles and limited selection just does not do it for me.
kathie thought:
i used to live in the neighborhood and i miss it. i do realize that the talk of boycott and the big bad corporation against the little guy stuff was just that--knee jerk. but i thought you should know their policies.
and i miss having a lunds and byerlys close by. my options--rainbow, cub and kowalskis. now, kowalskis has amazing cheese, bakery and deli/cooked foods and friendly, helpful employees but their produce sucks big time and their grocery variety is limited. But perhaps that's because the one by me is too chockful of things that are not grocery.
dave, i'm really impressed by the use of 'then/than' correctly! and i really do like the idea of public booing.