A sad business failure

In the late 1980s, Larry's Markets redefined the supermarket in Seattle. They carried everything you expected at a supermarket, at prices I never found to be significantly higher than most other stores. But that was just the baseline. They had stuff no other store carried: I once counted the mustards; IIRC there were 37. They had vegetables I'd never heard of, a wine and beer selection on par with a good specialty store, a spotless meat department, what would now be called "artisan" bread, a deli counter with prepared foods you were happy to serve your guests. The stores were airy and well-lighted; the staff were pleasant, friendly, and knowledgeable. They had a policy of putting more checkers on immediately if the lines got more than three deep. When they got popular enough that it started to get hard to find a place to park, they started offering free valet parking. Grocery shopping stopped being a chore and became a pleasure.

Over the last fifteen years, whenever I would think about what I missed about Seattle, Larry's Markets would be somewhere on the list. Not in the top ten, but in there. When in recent years I would visit Seattle for a week or so, I'd do my grocery shopping at Larry's, and find that they were still head-and-shoulders better than anyplace around Boston.

This morning I was getting my morning NPR fix by listening to the Seattle station online, when I learned from a little local interest item that Larry's Markets has gone bankrupt, and a sporting goods store, of all things, will be taking over two of its biggest stores. Sigh. One less thing to miss about home.

The same thing. But different.

At the risk of repeating myself, whatever expectations are invoked in you by the words Pachelbel's Canon in D are about to be violated. (Like the earlier violation, this one comes to us from Korea.)

This time I got the link not from an LJ friend, but from NPR: it was the subject of a story on "All Things Considered" tonight. (Which at the moment appears to have brought youtube to its knees. So you might want to hold off trying to actually watch it.)

Being NPR, they of course found their own unique way to present the story, including telling us about this even more virtuoso yet completely different guitar video.