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Once upon a time, in my Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, there were two low-budget small supermarkets.
One was a fetid, filthy Key Food on 9th between 49t and 50th. But I shopped there. Oh yes. Not for perishables, mind you. The store had a distinctive smell – ammonia and rotten meat. But if bad smells were enough to put me off my feed, I wouldn’t live in New York. For a can of Goya beans, or a box of spaghetti, you couldn’t beat the 9th Avenue Key Food.
The other was a less fetid but ancient store called the Victoria Supermarket, farther down 9th Avenue. I didn’t frequent it often, but when I did I was charmed by the hand-lettered signs and the fact that they proudly offered free delivery to customers, many of whom were elderly long-time Hell’s Kitchenites.
The Key Food is a Duane Reade now (great, we needed another one of those like a sharp stick in the eye) and the Victoria Supermarket has also met its demise. One day I was walking by and I saw a hand-lettered sign in the window that said something like “Thanks to our customers for 43 years of loyal patronage.
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3 Comments
1. boganmaster
2. Chimpotence
3. All_Mod_Cons
Want a neat little picture by your comments? Get one here.I understand how you feel, it shits me too but the worst part,(in australia) is that the farmers are still gettin gouged anyway. i’m sure its the same story the over there too. Too often on the television i see farmers whole crops sittin and rotting in the fields because its slightly cheaper to import the product. Hence, the farmers go bankrupt. Not to mention our seafood industry, which catches some of the best prawns and etc. in the world, guess what?they mostly get shipped overseas and we get shitty chinese prawns and other subpar items from around the world. sorry to ramble. bye
Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 3:28 am | Permalink
Whole Food is waaay too expensive, yes. But it’s got great food. I usually do the Saturday-afternoon farmers’ market for fresh veggies and organic meat, then Key Foods for the canned goods and whatnot, then Whole Foods or whatever hippie-store is around for the extra special stuff I crave.
And I hate rich people.
Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 8:12 pm | Permalink
I just learned that Whole Foods has another nickname - “The Food Museum.”
Posted Friday, November 25, 2005 at 9:26 pm | Permalink
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