My complicated feelings about Food Bazaar

There's a new supermarket in our neighborhood, and it's making me feel weird. Do you know the Food Bazaar chain? It's not very big, but it is mighty. They have 30+ locations in the metro NYC area, and the chain has been snapping up individual Fairway locations like snacks. (Fairway is a much-beloved local chain that's been struggling a bit in recent years.)

This summer, at a party that Abby can't remember, someone told us they love Food Bazaar because they have "tons of international ingredients." I got all het up because there had been a "Food Bazaar Coming Soon" sign up in our neighborhood for more than a year. I love groceries! But hate change! I wasn't sure how to feel.

The store finally opened in late August, to much fanfare. It is the chain's first location in Manhattan and everyone seems all jazzed. It's literally only two blocks from our apartment, in a huge new condo complex that's sure to ramp up the pace of gentrification. I imagine Food Bazaar is a key part of the developers' condo marketing strategy, along with the "Teriyaki Madness" franchise in the basement (coming soon).

Food Bazaar opened with much fanfare: posters and flyers everywhere, a live DJ and his hypeman pumping up the neighborhood on loudspeakers, balloons and streamers and even a little parade. Let's call Abby an "early adopter" — she dropped by Food Bazaar on its first week, zipping home to tell me breathlessly about how enormous and well-stocked it was, like a real-deal suburban supermarket.

I resisted, and I resisted, then finally one Saturday I agreed to accompany Miss Abby to her new favorite store. And holy guacamole, it was a lot. The produce section alone was bigger than the surplus grocer. Throngs of people wandering around in a wide-eyed tourists' daze. Wide open spaces, clean, abundant: This isn't the kind of supermarket we have on the island of Manhattan!

Samples everywhere — Abby and an older nona posted up at the enormous cheese sampling station, giggling as they stuffed their faces. Section after niche section: beer cave, organic alley, hot buffet for miles. Instead of a desultory half-row of "international" foods there were entire aisles devoted to specific countries. In the seafood section they had live lobsters and crabs for $5.99 a pound! I'm sheepish to admit I grabbed two lobsters for an impromptu feast (+corn and Checkers curly fries) later that night.

It was dazzling, okay? I was dazzled. And yet I couldn't help feel like one of the boys on Pleasure Island, or Templeton the rat at the fair. Surely there is something sinful about all this wanton abundance. We aren't meant to get everything we want. There will be an eventual comeuppance, I could just feel it!

Or maybe it was guilt? A misplaced feeling of loyalty to the salvage grocer, not to mention CityFresh and Foodtown, our janky supplementary grocers. In the movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, the lead guy played by Johnny Depp (we shall not be discussing Mr. Depp here) works at a small local grocer. His employer, run by a sweet middle-aged couple, struggles mightily when a big box supermarket moves to the outskirts of town. Johnny's character resists shopping there for weeks but one day is desperate to find a sheet cake for his brother's birthday. He bites the bullet and visits the new store, feeling impressed and won over, but also guilty and gross.

I am he.

It's been a couple of months now and I've grown more tranquil. For all its allure, I only stop by Food Bazaar occasionally when I need like, miso paste or papayas. The salvage grocer remains my main squeeze. Abby is a bit more polyamorous in her shopping habits, but that's okay. Yesterday she needed some feta for a recipe and I gently suggested she try the surplus grocer first. Oops no feta but she did grab several bags of fresh pasta and some Greek yogurt, before heading to Food Bazaar to get what she needed.

I suppose these twin grocers can co-exist in my day-to-day routines — and in my heart. Everything changes and evolves and life keeps on going and eventually we're all going to die. It's fine.

xo,

Jesse

P.S. We have a bit where we call it "Food Bizarre" and pretend we're some kind of 19th century carnival barker inviting people to come experience a taste of the outlandish and spooky and otherworldly. "Are you ready for a taste of the BIZARRRRRRE?" It is very funny.

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