The ground floor of our apartment building in the city presents a row of storefronts to the avenue: a pizzeria, a nail salon, a walk-in medical clinic, a supermarket, and a 24-hour diner. In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis scorned those who think that the ultimate source of bread is the baker’s van. Of course not: The ultimate source of bread is the supermarket.
Ours is one of a chain based in the city. It is a scrappy venue — not dirty (I never saw it closed by the Board of Health) but stressed. The space is tight — slightly longer than it is deep — which means the aisles are narrow and the carts small. Fresh vegetables are its weakest link; they were fresh, once, but they have come a long way from Hunts Point, and a longer way from the Central Valley. Meat used to be positively dodgy: When the store opened, one saw pigs’ feet and other items geared to ethnicities that live elsewhere, though over time the supermarket took better stock of its demographic. Berries, in their clear plastic coffins, are fine, if bland. Everything else, boxed, bottled, and canned, is what you find everywhere else. The canned vegetables aimed at Spanish speakers, I noticed long ago, are much more expensive than their English-labeled counterparts: Does brand loyalty enable gouging?
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