On Grocery Stores Part II

A more personal essay!

Welcome to the Tuesday post for all subscribers, the second in a two-part series about grocery store happenings. On Friday, paid subscribers will receive a recipe for cauliflower macaroni and cheese. As always, check out my website to learn more about my photography and to hire me for your next project.

Nobody could talk grocery shopping like my Mammaw. She had a favorite shop in every locale where she spent time, and she patronized them on the daily. For a long time, it was a running joke: no matter rain, shine, or pantry bursting at the seams, Mammaw was going to the store. She was personal friends with the butchers, who set aside prime cuts for her, and knew every cashier at the stores where she shopped. She made grocery lists during lulls in conversation and compared prices from store to store with careful accounting.

My grandma knew everyone at the stores where she shopped, and because she knew them, so did we. The stores themselves were characters in our family narratives. In the spring, Mammaw bought produce from the Daugherty Family Farm Stand. In the summer, she bought meat from The Lighthouse Grocer. And for everything else, she shopped at Ferri’s. A long-time holdout in the now chain-dominated small suburb where I grew up, Ferri’s was exactly equidistant between my grandparents’ house and our own.

Cozier, with shorter ceilings than any other grocery store I’ve ever been inside, Ferri’s was the center of my grandma’s universe. She’d make a beeline back to the butcher after waving hello to everyone in front, and from there, it was a free-for-all. One of the last times I was there with her, before COVID, she bought so much meat that a stranger in the parking lot had to help us load it into the van. This is a true story.

In many ways, I think, she represented the last of a generation who had personal connections with their grocers. Now, when I shop for groceries at massive chains like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, or Mariano’s, I do so with my headphones in. I have a list on my phone, I run through the shelves as quickly as I can, and then I queue up at self checkout so I don’t have to make small talk with a cashier. Even as I have gotten older and, as Colin puts it, “become my grandmother’s granddaughter,” going to the grocery store almost daily, mine is a more sterilized experience than hers. This occurred to me the other day and made me slightly sad.

Of course, there are places where the small-town magic still exists, and I’m lucky to know some of those places in the Chicagoland area and be able to patronize them. I’m also sure that living in a large urban area makes it easier to anonymously shop for groceries than a small town with a smaller store and a smaller staff to work there. Maybe I’m just trapped in a sterile, sad grocery store loop of commercial chains. But I have to think that the connection Mammaw had with Ferri’s was something more than just a friendship borne of circumstance.

A few weeks ago, my Mammaw passed away. Hours later, to our amazement, Ferri’s announced that it was closing after decades in business. The coincidence felt poignant; Ferri’s would never have to operate without her patronage, and she never had to live in a world without Ferri’s. I was even more touched to see that the Facebook account for Ferri’s, even after announcing their closure, posted a memorial for my grandmother. At her funeral, the families whose produce shops she patronized showed up to pay their respects. It was clear that she was just as big a part of their lives as they were in hers. There was a bond there that went beyond service provider and customer: instead, they were just two humans, one of whom happened to need groceries and the other of whom happened to have them.

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Thanks for reading this personal essay on grocery stores. Have a favorite market? Drop it below! See you back here on Friday for macaroni and cheese.