I have been known to purchase groceries in a little mall/shopping center called the Town and Country, located at 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles, directly across the street from the world famous Farmers Market. There's a drugstore there (used to be a Sav-On, now it's a CVS) and there's a department store there (used to be an independent, now it's a KMart) and there are some little shops and a great, cheap Italian cafeteria (used to be Andre's and it's still Andre's and it's terrific). And there's a market.
When I first began shopping there, the market was a Safeway…and I guess it was a decent market. Or at least it was, up until the day it abruptly closed. As I recall, there was no warning. One day, it was open and operating. Then that evening at closing time, the manager reportedly informed the employees they were not to come to work the next day…or ever again. Moments later (I was told), an armada of Safeway trucks roared up outside and a huge crew began to denude the market of its remaining stock, starting with the most perishable and working their way down to the Lucky Charms. This was in the early eighties and those boxes of Lucky Charms have yet to reach their expiration dates.
I went by the next day and found Safeway customers milling around outside in a state of shock, asking God how he could have taken their market away like that…and in the dead of night, no less. There was one elderly woman — she looked like Molly Picon — who was muttering, "Where are we going to buy our groceries? Where?" She made it sound like there was now nowhere to get food within the county of Los Angeles.
Ever the helpful passer-by, I pointed out to here that there was a Market Basket (another chain) one entire block away. She looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Have you seen what they charge in there?" She, like a lot of folks in the area, were on fixed incomes and lacking automobiles. The one block wasn't a problem. Ten cents more for a can of Bumble Bee Chunk Light apparently was. The KMart rose to the occasion by clearing housepaints and some other hardware-style merchandise out of its basement and installing a little supermarket. Somehow, between that and the Market Basket, the neighborhood got by.
Then six months or so later, the Market Basket closed…also without warning. Again, people around there acted like they'd all starve; like there was no more food anywhere. Why, the nearest Ralphs was all the way over at La Cienega and Third, almost a mile away.
The former Safeway sat vacant all that time. Then one day, a miraculous sign appeared in its window — a notice that the forthcoming tenant had applied for a permit to sell beer and wine on the premises. If you looked closely at the sign, it told you who that tenant would be: Ralphs.
I will never forget another elderly woman of the neighborhood — not the one who looked like Molly Picon. This one looked more like Maureen Stapleton and she was practically leaping up and down with glee in front of the still-empty market. She was yelling over and over, "It's gonna be a Ralphs! It's gonna be a Ralphs!" If you'd told that lady, "Oh, by the way, you also just won the lottery," I don't think she could have gotten much happier.
So Ralphs it would be. And to tide the neighbors over until the new store was open for business, and to generate some good will in the community, they set up some sort of free shuttle bus. It went from outside the Ralphs-to-be over to the Ralphs on La Cienega and back.
Soon, the former Safeway building did indeed house a Ralphs and everyone was happy…maybe not as happy as Maureen Stapleton but happy. This happiness continued with scant interruption until a decade or two later when without explanation, Ralphs moved out and Lucky moved in. It was a well-orchestrated transition of power and turf, and all we as shoppers had to do on our end was get a new club card and continue shopping. A few years later, the Lucky became an Albertsons when the Albertsons company bought the Lucky company and switched the names over. I think it was an Albertsons for about three years until it too suddenly closed and that mall was again marketless.
By now, we were used to it, all of us. Like a much-married person whose spouses keep deserting them, we'd come to expect it. Safeway…Ralphs…Lucky…Albertsons…all of them, fickle and undependable. And let's not forget that Market Basket down the block that left us, as well. Tramps, all of them. They came. They fed us for a time. They left and broke our hearts.
So we just waited. We knew, sooner or later, someone else would come along. Someone else to toy with our affections, lead us on and then, just when we were feeling secure in the relationship, dump us. Dump us the way they all did, sooner or later.
Sure enough, a few months later another Application to Sell Alcoholic Beverages appeared on one of the empty store's soaped-up windows. This one said Mrs. Gooch was coming in…but when she arrived, she was a Whole Foods Market. It's been there a while now and seems to be permanent. They even bought out two stores on one side, knocked out walls and expanded…which made us feel good. You don't do that if there's a chance you'll be disappearing into the night like the rest of them.
No one who looks like Molly Picon or Maureen Stapleton shops at Whole Foods. I don't think they even let you in unless you look reasonably healthy. I'm apparently fit enough that they allow me in. I go there often, even though I know the food is overpriced and it never, ever tastes as good when you get it home as you think it'll taste when you see it in the store. There's a joke some comedian tells — I'm not sure who — about how someone gave them a $10 gift certificate at Whole Foods. They went in and managed to buy one lime with it…and the punch line is, "Well, at least I'm not going to get scurvy." That's kind of how I feel when I shop there. At least I'm not going to get scurvy. And it does seem to be here to stay…maybe. Because things are changing once again.
As I said, the Town and Country shopping center that houses this Whole Foods is located at the corner of 3rd and Fairfax. That's the Southeast corner. The Northeast corner has Farmers Market on it and the Southwest corner has a big office building that houses the Writers Guild of America, West.
The Northwest corner was an empty lot. For years and years, as long as I can remember, it was an empty lot. A few weeks before each Halloween, some merchant would come along and sell pumpkins there and then not long after that season was over, the pumpkins would be replaced by Christmas trees. But for most of the year, it was an empty lot — probably one of the most expensive undeveloped pieces of real estate in Los Angeles. A month or two ago though, they broke ground and began building another shopping center on that lot, on that corner. It's to house a number of little stores on its second floor, plus they're tearing down a nursery next door in order to build an appropriate-sized parking lot for the new mall.
On the first floor? They're putting in a Trader Joe's.
A Trader Joe's across the street from a Whole Foods…which was already across the street from the Farmers Market. This could be all-out war but it could also be one of those messy kind of love triangles where you just know someone's going to get hurt. You don't know who but you know someone is. I'm going to watch it all guardedly and dispassionately, waiting to see who. All I know is it won't be me…and I'm not going to get scurvy.
