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captainsblogI thought we were done for the week. And quite a week it had been, with well over 700 miles on the cars in the previous eight days, including going to two concerts, a poetry reading and a comedy show. All of that on top of a fairly typical week of work for me and house things for Eleanor. Not to mention that her birthday is later this week, and there are at least three opportunities for us to see performers that evening that she, at least, never has seen doing music. So I figured yesterday would be, at most, a walk with the dog and finishing mowing the lawn to the depressing sounds of a Mets game.
Would you like to go to another poetry open mic, Ray?
That’s unusual, coming from Eleanor. I’m usually the one that keeps the social media antennae up, but this one was announced during the last one on Wednesday night, and I must’ve been too busy taking pictures or something to pay attention.
It was 3 PM, she said, so right after the group walk with the dog I did decide to go on, I decided to get the modest grocery order filled a little early, and was in Wegmans right before 1 p.m., planned just in time to get back for Mets first pitch in our backyard before this event.
The store, unfortunately, it’s in the middle of what they call a “reset.“ It’s that periodic game of Retail TETRIS that all kinds of stores do at least once or twice a year. Some believe that they do it on purpose, moving things around just to keep you off your game and having to look for things on the shelves to encourage more impulse purchases. This may be that to some extent, but at Wegmans there is also a one-time agenda being carried out.
When I first discovered the iconic chain in Buffalo over 40 years ago, Danny Wegman, son of the founder, was the face and signature of the franchise. His product description and signed personal guarantee was on every box and can of private label product. Around the time Eleanor started working for them here, well over 15 years ago, Danny had begun to step back; the products were now signed by "The Wegmans Family," and he was turning over control to his two daughters, primarily Colleen. I’ve met her in stores a few times, Eleanor has several, and she’s a nice if typically corporate person. Her sister Nicole hasn’t had quite the same role, although she is or was very much involved in two very visible retail efforts of theirs. One continues to move forward, slowly and painstakingly, while the other was a big cause for the reset I have seen going on in at least a few of their local stores.
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The older one of these was Nicole’s pet project called “Nature’s Market.” This was a large dedicated area of the selling floor, usually right next to their pharmacy, containing all of their high-end products for the frufru and woowoo customers. You got your tofu burgers, your protein bars, your gluten free snacks, your herbal potions and lotions, All conveniently located together just like the GNC or Whole Foods Danny didn’t want you going to. Eleanor, and even I, use some of these products, and some of them are also duplicated next to their less Nature-y counterparts. That would often turn grocery lists into a sort of scavenger hunt: Is it in Nature's, or over with the regular rice/bars/whatever?
And that was BEFORE the reset. Word is, the demographics and other data weren't working, especially with Amazon and Instacart becoming much bigger things since they rolled the plan out. Already in some of their smaller stores, things like "NATURES SNACKS" were being integrated back into the places in the rest of the store that the other such things were. Now it looks like those entire sets of Nature's aisles are being taken back....
but not for Nicole's other pet project. At least not yet.
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Wegmans is a wonderful world of culinary delights. Fans line up overnight for grand openings in farflung new markets. Chambers of commerce beg to be picked. In a world used to Waldbaums and Piggly Wiggly, these stores are heaven. Not just the range of groceries to bring home, but full restaurant-level offerings first thing in the door. Pizza and wings, subs and sushi, executive chefs in store creating concoctions to heat and eat! Only one forbidden fruit is kept out of their New York stores, though, and Danny and daughters have been displeased for ages:
the fruit of the grape.
That's their store in Erie, PA. I took that photo on Election Day 2016, when I was down there helping Hillary's campaign watch the battleground-state polls to make sure the MAGAs didn't try to pull any stunts. Even kinkier, though?
A Coke machine with booze in their Market Cafe! As long as it doesn't break down as often as the real Coke machines do, this is major lost profit, not being able to sell wine in New York! So every few years, the lobbyists get WIGS-y wit it.
WIGS is the acronym for "Wine In Grocery Stores," and it's a pitch battle between the big boxes- not just Danny but Wally and Bullseye the Target Dog and I imagine even Dick wanting to get in on it- and the "poor little Main Street liquor retailers," most of which are melded into not-chain chains that use the same ads, logos and other branding.
For in New York, liquor licensing is another of the Puritanical areas, like service of process on a Sunday, that has persisted as other "blue laws" have fallen. It wasn't relevant to me, but I remember girls my age complaining, when we hit puberty, that I could buy a Playboy magazine on a Sunday but they couldn't buy a box of tampons. That's been fixed (I hope;), but liquor laws are still eighteenth century at best. Liquor licenses are personal to human beings, and you can only be on one.
So the Wegmans have made the best of it. In 2007, Nicole played her one license card and bought what was then Rochester's largest independent liquor retailer, Century Liquor and Wines, and moved it from the west side of the city to a plaza next to the family chain's flagship Pittsford Wegmans location. Five years later, Nicole "sold" the store to Danny, which in turn enabled her to "buy" a Buffalo area booze establishment next to the only Wegmans within the city limits. It's run as "Amherst Wine and Liquors," but the W-branding, the Shoppers Club cards, and everything else ties it back to the "main store." Other relatives have purchased smaller Rochester area liquor joints near the family business's grocery locations.
Is it enough for them? Of course not. Last month, for the first time in awhile, the big stores made another push to get a change into the end-of-session final push of Albany legislation, to allow the sales directly in grocery stores. Out came the marketing efforts, seen in perhaps the clearest adjacent relief, at the plaza nearest my gym. Out in the Wegmans vestibule-
- while, not 200 yards away, outside Addy's Wine and Liquor, an unrelated entity next door:
It's the usual arguments: Mom and Pop know you personally and will help you pair the perfect wine with your crudite, not like those hacks at Wegners. Plus, Little League! I'm surprised they left off the bit about Big Box Cashiers Letting Underage Kids Drink. That old trope fails because, duh, grocery stores already sell beer, and Wegmans cards EVERYBODY, including me back when I was buying brew.
Making this particular combination especially weird? Addy's is a tenant of Wegmans in that plaza. The grocery chain owns the building and provides two rows of dedicated parking for Addy's customers closest to the building. Although none of the Wegmans are on that liquor license, their branding tries very hard to match the decor of the store next door, including their lit outdoor sign, the font and colors of the inside signage, and even the fork-plate-and-glass logo Danny made famous (without the family name, of course:):
In the end, the Big Box effort failed in Albany, but this battle of the bottle is by no means over. There are sensible compromises they could explore, such as pairing (see what I did there) grocery locations with individual liquor licensees near them and giving them joint control and responsibility. Addy's owner would be a perfect match for the guys next door to them. Or, allow the purchases, but add a convenience fee to each glass, box or bottle, to make going to Mom or Pop more economical.
Albany being Albany, no such sensible idea will ever fly. Plus, since we're not drinking anymore, we really don't give a shit.
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Meanwhile, the resets continue.
They do try to help, posting “looking for?” signs where the stuff used to be. The one in the cereal aisle, where the peanut butter used to be, says the peanut butter has moved to 9A. That is fitting, because apparently it is located right next to Aisle 9 and three-quarters.
This week's Shopper's Club special? Schrödinger’s Jif.
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During my lost and confusion, I checked on the open mic and Facebook said it had already begun at 1:00, plus the MLB app said the Met game had been postponed to 5:10 due to weather. The former was not quite true, while the latter was correct and the game did go on and the Mets even won! But the details of the poetry at a gallery, and of an Art Thief who was and wasn't there, will have to wait until next time:)