West Allis in Wonderland

by Pearse Anderson

Refrigeration always seems to be a challenge in a surplus grocer: Frequently, purchased wholesale foods are shelf stable, so a fridge is just another expense. If there’s no large row of chillers, why go through the logistical hurdles to purchase and store a lot of chilled items? Costco is a good example of this in action: Their refrigerated section is quite small compared to the rest of the warehouse. Lots 4 Less only has 2 fridges in the back, stocked with normal-priced eggs/milk/cheese. The first time I arrived the fridges were overflowing with kefir, but I haven’t been lucky since.

When Jesse posts his photos of frozen lobster or single-serving cordon bleus (Ed. note: Should this be cordons bleu?) or whatever, I’m jealous! You cannot easily make a cordon bleu shelf stable. That’s why my discovery of the Jones Outlet stores in southern Wisconsin was so revelatory: they have a refrigerated section! These two stores, in East Troy and West Allis, Wisconsin, are seemingly run by one Paul Jones, who stocks them with hand pies, JoJo Siwa cereal, tubs of sour cream and logs of pork.

The Milwaukee Record covered the store here and it’s a hoot. Yes Paul, yes! What are your secrets? Well, he has a pretty accessible Microsoft email, so I think I’ll send him an email. What questions do you want him to answer?

After writing this, I decided that the main challenge for me to buy refrigerated surplus in Wisconsin is the 2+ hour commute back to Chicago with yogurt that’s almost turned: How is that not going to get ruined in the journey? I needed a high-quality, reliable cooler if I was going to make this a reality. So I purchased a surplus one.

The Igloo 24 Qt cooler retails at $150 given its ”top-performance, super-durable” quality with Ultratherm® insulation. One came in at SliBuy, an Amazon returns warehouse, in a banged-up packaging, but no other clear problems according to the few photos I saw. It was listed as New/Other, which according to Yelp reviews from SliBuy might mean nothing, but I began to put in bids. SliBuy operates similarly to eBay: You submit online auction bids before the timer runs out, usually relying on a few shaky jpegs to guide your intuition. For $55 dollars and a morning of my time, the Igloo was mine.

I giggled as I opened the ragged packaging with a box cutter, seeing the injection molded frame, the fish ruler printed on top, and the bottle opener inside. It’s the best cooler I’ve ever owned, and I am going to try to fill it with salvaged crab meat. SliBuy was quite a trip (see below) but worth it, I think.

To test if it is truly working, or if I made an error in buying a surplus cooler for surplus product, I filled it with ice and put it in the sun. I have a stopwatch going and will inspect it every day for four days (the maximum ice retention time) until all has melted. By the time you’re reading this, hopefully my downstairs neighbor isn’t noticing any water stains begin to grow on her ceiling.

Wow, it works! It completely, perfectly, works. Terrifyingly, the warm sunny day I put it out was the last day of a false Chicago spring before it SNOWED in April*, but I don’t think it upset the experiment too much. OK, let’s haul it to West Allis, WI.

*Editor’s note: I’ve really let this post languish.

A short history of the Jones Outlet in West Allis, as told by grocery clerk Sherry, is that this grocery once operated here for 9 years, encompassing a regular grocery-sized storefront and selling surplus items to all. But their lease wasn’t renewed, so Paul Jones decamped to East Troy to be with his family.

Twist: The original grocery store’s landlord decided to turn most of the storefront from a grocer into a mechanic shop. But the landlord wasn’t going to use the grocery store office, and so he offered the entire West Allis operation the chance to compartmentalize itself and move into a wee office space to sell their goods. And damn if they didn’t do it.

The store is tiny, like a one-bedroom in New York City, with clear remnants of its office space origins: the cash register is where the old desk was, the coat closets are now stocked with seed oils and sausage bites, and a nice glassed-in side room has become the Snack Zone, full of Betty Crocker glory and Little Debbies discontinued delights. Apparently, this is all packed and tight and awful for the two days the store is open to the public. I saw none of that when I came, perhaps because we arrived at the tail end of their workday, right before they closed for five days. Also, there had been some hailstorming, so probably less foot traffic than normal: We joined in on the soft milling about of moms buying Lucky Charms marshmallows and Old El Paso tortilla shells. Sherry kept us company, and told us all about the sourcing of their Babybel cheese and Pillsbury cinnamon roll doughs that exploded in her car one time.

Eggo-flavored Pop-Tarts are filled with “maple” filling, so I don’t really see how they could be better than brown sugar Pop-Tarts. 3/5

Cinnadusted™ popcorn? Tastes exactly like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which feels like a laundering of the “cinnamon sugar” flavor through the tough, grinding gears of American capitalist giants like General Mills. You can just add cinnamon sugar to popcorn! We did this decades ago with caramel corn! “Cinnalicious” says my partner’s dad. 3/5

Frozen surplus meatballs? Amazing. I put them in everything now: meatball subs, English breakfast sheet pan breakfasts, surplus soups. I love having meat. 5/5

God bless you, massive Igloo cooler. You are my new child.

Plus, now when I walk around downtown Chicago after attending a free magic show in a museum basement, I have these surplus stores to talk about to the anti-orgy protesters outside the Polish church. Two of the four protestors were from West Allis and East Troy! Small world. Hello, I said, have you tasted the excess meatballs there? No, to clarify, I am not referring to more orgy perverts. I’m talking about the Jones Outlets. (Ed. note: Pearse, please keep in mind this is a blog for families and churchgoers.)

Once the protestors started dropping in some antisemitic dog whistles, I knew it was my time to dip. I left them for the Chicago Riverwalk, a beautifully designed public space bathed in the shadow of skyscrapers and constantly abuzz with architecture cruise ships. I walked west on the walk for awhile, eventually realizing I was 10 minutes away from a Jewel-Osco. One with a stocked surplus section by their bathroom . . . .

I went for it! But that’s next time, on The Haul.

Take care you orgy perverts,

-Pearse