By Megan Padilla. Shopping used to be a pleasure at my College Park Publix. One of the primary reasons we chose College Park when moving to Orlando from Brooklyn, NY was because I didn’t want to have to get in my car to buy milk. Our tiny, retro and amazingly stocked store is only .25 miles from my front door. And, they sure knew how to pack an organic-punch into such a small space. In fact, I used to brag to out-of-towners about the 95% of my grocery shopping I could complete there, everything from grass-fed beef, to ground almond meal, eliminating my need to make a second trip to a natural food market.
The nine-year honeymoon came to an end when the College Park Publix “Remodel” was unveiled a few months ago. Apparently, too many customers complained about congestion down the center aisle. The solution was to eliminate the rather good selection of Greenwise (Publix organic brand), organic and natural foods and fill it with bottled water. BOTTLED WATER! Like we need an entire aisle of a small store devoted to landfill! Half of another aisle is devoted to candy. It infuriates me that as the grocery-store wars are heating up in Orlando (and I live pretty close to ground zero of all the amazing options, thank you Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s, Chamberlin’s and soon-to-be Whole Foods), my neighborhood Publix slipped back 5 years — heck, make it 10 — and feels more and more like shopping at the bodega on the corner of my Brooklyn street (minus the chain-smoking patriarch who sat affixed to an upside down bucket out front). I know it’s small, but geez, but does market research indicate that College Park peeps only want Doritos and M&Ms? And bottled water?
Sure, the staff tries to appease me. They’ve special ordered products for me, even sent their shopper to buy items at other stores for me that they no longer carry. It sounds like good service, but aren’t we living in the era of NOW? It hasn’t really worked on an ongoing basis because it requires too much planning. Adding a task to my shopping (“Stop by on Tuesdays and ask for your order at Customer Service”) isn’t helpful.
Over time, I’ve found products at other stores and my near-daily trips to Publix are decidedly less frequent. Shopping there now is no longer the pleasure it once was. In fact, it pretty much steams my ass (thank you Jan Barker for that eloquent turn-of-phrase). Still, every time I check out, the staff continues to ask, “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” As a courtesy, I wish they’d stop asking.
- Megan Padilla
