The Frinklin and Fred Show

My Favorite Grocery Store is About to Bite the Dust

I’m rather pretentious when it comes to my grocery stores. The Missus and I frequent the Metropolitan Market here in Tacoma. When we lived in San Diego we would go about 30 miles out of our way to go to the Whole Foods in Hillcrest. We were smarter then. We would buy staples at Safeway or Albertson’s, then buy our organic vegetables and whatever else we pleased at Whole Foods. We would almost invariably buy more than we needed, spend more then we should have and never use at least one-third of what we bought. Now we buy everything at the upscale market, basically paying 20% more because it’s easier and because the Metropolitan is just very, very cool.

I blame my mother for this. When I was in high school, my mother discovered Larry’s Market, the upscale grocery store in the Puget Sound. Ours was in Kirkland, near the corner of 124th and 124th. We were never very good at naming streets where I grew up. Anyway, Larry’s was then -like the Met is now- the cool grocery store. It had a espresso stand and organic fruits and a giant wine section. In the early 1990’s this was close to revolutionary. Anyway, my mother -despite it being more expensive and several blocks farther away then other stores- became a Larry’s devotee. And it spread to me, apparently. From me to my wife.

Now it seems Larry’s is on hard times. It filed for bankruptcy today , and is expected to be bought out. The name will almost certainly change, which is sad, since Larry’s is a family-owned business on it’s third generation. The company made some horrid mistakes over the last decade, iincluding a low-budget spin-off called Larry's LoBucks. I'm very pleased that I never saw that.