Friday, May 6, 2016

My neighborhood market is closing!


A few years after we moved into our house, a Walmart Neighborhood Market replaced the Winn Dixie just up the road. (I'm talking a two minute drive.) I was super excited because I no longer had to drive up to the Super Walmart (ten minutes away).

We've had a mostly happy partnership since then and I could probably tell anyone where anything is in the store. Every weekend for a dozen years I've shopped that store, so yeah.

DD tagged me in a post last weekend about the article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram saying that the store had been under-performing and would be closed for good as of May 29.

We don't live in the greatest part of town, I'll grant you, but that store was almost always busy. It's hard for me to fathom it as under-performing. My MIL suggested perhaps theft was huge issue and that makes a lot more sense to me.

Last Sunday, when I arrived to do the weekly shopping, the store wasn't open. So new hours--9 to 7. Ugh. I returned at nine to find a crowd--there's never been that many people in the store at nine a.m. on a Sunday. I guess all those folks thought there'd be discounted pricing, but why would there be?--it's a franchise. All they have to do is re-allocate inventory.

Inside I discovered that they're no longer stocking produce or dairy. There's no point in me going back in the store. I can't get everything I want or need in a single trip to a single store, so there's no point. This weekend, it's back to the Super Walmart. On the bright side of that--I can get the coconut flavored yogurt I like so much. On the downside...all the temptation of all the other stuff in the store. (Okay, not really. I have self-control, especially when I have no money to actually spend. :) )

So it's the end of an era. I wonder if another grocery store chain will eventually move in there, or if some other type of business will give the location a try. It does make me sad though. I know that some people consider Walmart to be one of our country's great satans, but when money's tight, their prices can't be beat.

Are you a Walmart lover or a Walmart hater?


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