Company Blog

The Local Oasis

by Adam Zack — July 10, 2019

You can’t manufacture soul, no matter the investment.

I was sitting on the beach in San Diego last Sunday reading food magazines -Food & Wine, Bon Apetit, Milk Street. (OK, I’ll admit it – I was also reading People Magazine – don’t judge). It’s food that brings us together and is what truly I love. My wife was reading the Food & Wine editor’s letter and said “Hey, this is written with a reference toward restaurants, but it really applies to what you blog about regarding grocery stores.”

So I read it, and she was right on. The gist of the letter is that he was at this new mall opening in Manhattan – lots of fancy food, glitz, famous chefs. It sounds like it was a really big deal. Getting out of the event turned into quite the fiasco, but he finally made his way to a favorite neighborhood restaurant. “That whiplash evening reinforced my conviction that you can’t manufacture soul, no matter the investment. The best restaurants [think grocers] don’t just serve memorable food; they’re community and neighborhood oases, offering humanity and hospitality that smooth frayed edges at day’s end.” – Hunter Lewis, Editor, Food & Wine, July 2019. That struck me as to what being the local grocer is, and that opportunity every day to be your customers oasis in this huge pool of food shopping options. How great is the feeling when you’re walking your store in the evening or on a weekend and you see neighbors who maybe haven’t seen each other in a while communing over food selections and catching up on what the families have been up to. You’re the local community conduit where friends and neighbors come together with the common goal of feeding their families and get the unexpected – or if you’re good – the expected interaction of soul that Amazon or Walmart can never compete with.