Unchained in America

Saturday was a typical errand day for me, just like a lot of women in America. Off work and that means I have lots of shopping errands to complete. But my shopping experience is about as different as it gets from the average American housewife who spends her bucks in chain stores and may never step foot in a locally owned store in her town.

There are always flowers in bloom around the entrance and Caspar the cat's grave is just to the left (overlooking the CVS drivethrough -ha!).

Here’s how my day went. Out the door and my first stop after the bank was to our locally owned pharmacy. In our town of Cleveland, we are lucky to have three independently owned pharmacies. Pretty amazing! We have shopped at The Medicine Shoppe since we arrived, after one of my museum staff members recommended this amazing pharmacy.

Run by Endo, a Japanese immigrant who is the pharmacist and owner, this is truly the most special pharmacy we’ve ever done business with! Medicine Shoppes are franchises. But we decided at the beginning of our experiment that IF the franchise does not force the owners to have their stores all look the same and follow cookie cutter practices, that these are locally owned stores as far as we were concerned.

Endo with one of his helpers

And boy does this pharmacy not look like any pharmacy you’ve ever visited. When you walk in you are greeted by a warm and inviting space that has:

• A grand piano
• Photos of Endo’s family on the wall along with other personal mementos
• Two cushy sofas
• A coffee table with his family photo album, a fish tank

Until recently a regal white cat named Casper would greet you as you can in. Sadly, though, Casper passed away a few weeks ago and is lovingly buried outside the front entrance.

Endo and his great staff of young college-age men and women always greet you by name when you enter (or drive up at the drive through). They know all about us and ask after our family, how work is going, and truly care about us. We, in turn, care about them. On my recent visit I saw a picture of Endo’s grandson in California and photos of Erica’s new baby boy who was born just about the time that Casper the cat was put to sleep in Endo’s arms at the vet’s. I defy anyone to have these exchanges with the staff at a CVS or Rite Aide!

Endo with some of his personal items

And yes, you can get your generic drugs just as cheaply at Endo’s store as at the chain pharmacies. But sadly, as a small mom-and-pop store, he struggles to survive against the big chain drug stores that are on every street corner in Cleveland. They can advertise their cheap drugs, and so people think he doesn’t offer them as inexpensively. And several years after opening his store, the people who sold him the land on which to build his store turned around and sold the adjoining land to a CVS! Ouch! He hangs in there because his customers are loyal to him and their word-of-mouth advertising keeps him in business.

If I need pills at any time of day — 24-7 — Endo will meet me at the pharmacy and fill the order for an emergency. I have his home phone number and can call him there. Do any of you have the home phone number of your CVS pharmacist? I don’t think so! This is true service and what the old-fashioned local pharmacists used to be like. Endo is the kind of pharmacist I want to dispense life-giving drugs to me and my family.

After leaving Endo’s, my next stop was our local health food store, Abundant Living. I try toshop here first to get as much as I can. On this visit I stopped and spoke with one of the owners, Dave Carringer, about our year of shopping unchained. He filled me in a bit on Abundant Living’s own belief in shopping locally. They buy all their office supplies and paper products from local vendors, even though they may pay a bit more for them.Joe Rodgers Office Supply was one supplier he mentioned. Dave said that as a small, locally owned business, he understood how hard it was for all of them to stay in business and he would much prefer to keep his money local. I bet our local chain grocery store doesn’t buy locally.

Dave at Abundant Living

Dave then went on to say that Abundant Living tries hard to donate back to the community for the many needy causes in the area. Like most locally owned stores, he generously gives a larger percentage of donations to the community than big-box stores ever do. Why? Because he and all the other citizens who own locally owned stores live in their communities and care about them. And because their stores aren’t owned or controlled by some far-off corporation, they don’t have to send their profits off to corporate headquarters. A big-box store may participate in some charitable giving in the community, but it is a small token of the amount of profits that they send off to corporate headquarters.

The grain bins at Abundant Living

Abundant Living has a very nice selection of organic products, produce, supplements, and beauty aids. The staff are very helpful and friendly. True to form, like a small mom-and-pop store, the service is excellent and after you’ve left you feel as if you’ve shopped with family not strangers.

Dave must have read my blog right after I left the store because I came home to a nice email from him. He saw where I’m only eating meat from local sources and wrote this about local beef and chicken they sell:

Now I drive to Fort Payne AL. and get our meat from Teddy Gentry at Bent Tree Farms. His beef (Burts Beef by name / his Grandfather) is 100% free range, grass fed, no hormones, steroids, chemicals, or vaccinations of any kind. Next time you’re in I’ll give you a pack to try. He has a great farm and is actually the spokesperson for the S.E. Grassfed Beef Association. He’s been doing it for about 20 yrs. in addition to being the bass player for the Alabama Band. We also get our chicken from the Amish farms, again, with no nasty chemicals added, all free range.

I’ll let everyone know how the beef is in a future blog. Hey, if the owner is a member of the Alabama Band I’m sure he’s got good beef!

On from the health food store to our locally owned grocery store, Cookes. In business since the 1940s, Cooke’s is owned by the Cooke family who also own Seasons Harvest, as well as several chains such as our local Panera Bread and several regional stores of the Save-A-Lot chain grocery. So, it’s an interesting family that blends the local with the chain, but I have to say that they’re definitely interested in their local community because of all the donations they make. The Cooke family is one of the most generous families in the community in supporting many causes, and they employ many local people in all their stores.

We have shopped now at Cooke’s for the duration of this experiment. It’s been fine shopping there, but I have to admit that at times its a bit frustrating. The store is small and the selection a bit limited. Occasionally, when we’ve gone into a Bi-Lo or a Publix, either with a friend or on the very rare occasions when we HAD no other choice, we’ve felt an interesting combination of being both overwhelmed with to many choices and also somewhat giddy. So there is a yin and a yang.

As consumers, I think we are now bombarded with too much choice in grocery stores today. How many types of a garbage bags do we need? But then again, after being so limited in choice for a year, when we do walk into these stores its almost like Christmas. More on this in a later post.

Cooke’s is our mainstay grocery store, but for specialty items, especially our Blue Smoke Coffee, we head to Seasons Harvest. This week at Seasons Harvest, I picked up Dan’s favorite bacon, their deli Blazing Buffalo chicken for lunches, some organic chips, and my favorite quick on-the-go-lunch: sushi. Seasons Harvest is the only place in town where I can get sushi in a grocery store like this. Ironically, while driving away and listing to NPR, NPR the had a program on why you shouldn’t eat sushi and other fish from the ocean. (Sorry, I can’t find the link to it.) It was pretty touching stuff to hear as I was plopping one piece of tuna after another into my mouth. Sigh.

Our new video store!

But I was cheered when out of the corner of my eye I spied a sign that I’ve driven by literally hundreds of times but it never registered – Corner Video II. With a squealing of breaks, I quickly turned into the nondescript shopping center and pulled up to a tiny hole-in-the-wall video store and though to myself, “We’ve been going with out new release videos since January and this has been here all along?” With a sigh, I got out and went inside hoping that this was not some tiny chain.

Certainly the interior, about the size of an over-sized closet, gave no impression of a chain. But I’ve been fooled before. A woman and man were conversing at the counter so I browsed and found a video I’ve wanted to see, Marley and Me, and headed to the check out. The gentleman left, and as I filled out the forms for a new card I asked the woman about the store.

Yes, she was the owner, and no, it wasn’t a chain. She said she was really struggling to stay in business since the Red Boxes had begun appearing outside of Walmart. These kiosks rent movies for $1.00 and charge no late fees. I guess they are the latest in convenience and cost savings for those looking for that type of thing. She’d owned the business for seventeen years and managed the store for four before that. What bothered her was that she’d watch the children of our first customers grow up to become her customers and they were the ones now abandoning her for the Red Box videos. I said it was a shame that they didn’t care they were putting her out of business. Her response was “All they care about is convenience and price.” She was now renting her videos for a mere 99 cents.

I have to say she hasn’t sat back and just rung her hands, though. Besides the videos, she’s branched out into tanning beds, slushies, sodas, jewelry, and even lottery tickets. So you have to give her credit for trying to keep the business alive! I’d be curious to know if any of you out there have locally owned video stores? It would be great to support them if you do!

With that, I headed home secure in knowing that I kept my dollars local and helped quite a few local business owners stay in business. Do you make an effort to shop locally? Tell us about it if you do!

The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy
2414 N. Ocoee Street
Phone: (423) 746-1919
Fax: (423) 476-1902

Hours:
Mon.: Fri.: 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
Sat.: 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Corner Video II
5004 Georgetown Rd. NW
(423) 472-313
Hours: 1:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. daily