One of the things I miss about our old neighborhood is the corner grocery store (that’s a photo of it on the left). It was a few blocks away and we would go there for everything from eggs and milk to wine and cleaning supplies. We still went to the big grocery store for major shopping, but it was nice to have someplace we could walk to when we needed last minute dinner ingredients or some bananas.

We talk about the demise of the corner store all the time. It’s something that gives your neighborhood a sense of cohesiveness and self-sufficiency. If you don’t have a car, you could still get food. If you just got back from vacation, have an empty fridge, but have to make dinner, the corner store is your best friend. And as you pop in to grab the weekend paper or supplies for Saturday night dinner, you run into neighbors. And many corner stores are run by someone who lives here, so you are supporting a local business.

My husband grew up in our neighborhood and remembers two corner grocery stores. The locations of both are now, luckily, two local businesses that are doing well. But I still wonder why corner neighborhood grocery stores are a rare breed. When we ask people around here if they know of any corner stores, they often cite the two my husband grew up with. Then they respond that they just hop in the car and drive to one of the two big grocery stores nearby. We get similar responses when we ask people from various neighborhoods in the entire metro area. Most (including our family) think it’s odd that we wouldn’t just get in our car and thought it was a ridiculous question. But when we asked if they would utilize a little neighborhood grocer, they all said “absolutely.”

This is not a post about big grocery stores. We in Rochester are extremely lucky to have a homegrown grocery store with the reputation, products and services that others across the nation are now discovering. Most of us need the big grocers for our major shopping needs. Those of us with kids seem to live at the grocery store. A big grocery store and the little neighborhood store are not mutually exclusive; we need them both. You could save gas, get exercise and see people you know as you stop into your neighborhood store for a gallon of milk instead of driving all the way to the big store. And it’s not the major grocery stores’ faults that neighborhood grocers aren’t around. In fact, the two big grocery stores near here were both here in their current locations when the corner stores were thriving. I think the cause has more to do with what we value in this country. We would rather get in our cars, so we don’t have to walk and carry things. It’s easy. Convenient. We all fall prey to it. We also seem to have less time than we used to, as we are all working longer hours and involved in commitments that leave us feeling like we only have time to run errands in our cars. And some people are set in their ways and want exactly that brand of eggs all the time. When you pop into your neighborhood grocer, you may find only 3 kinds of bread instead of 47.

I don’t have the answers. We are lucky that we can buy milk and bread at our neighborhood bakery and wine at the wine shop up the street. I have to put on my walking shoes and frequently go out in the rain and snow. But I don’t have to get in the car. And every chance we get, we support them because we value having them in our neighborhood.