Mr. G's

The 53rd Street Co-op has closed. I was a little surprised, since there was no notice beforehand that it would close, and I was on my way to get some ingredients to make lasagna when I had to about-face and walk all the way to 55th street.

Before it was the 53rd Street Branch of the Co-op, this grocery store was called "Mr. G's", presumably named after its owners, Joel Gearring and Bill Gerstein. Zed still calls it Mr. G's, which is a better name than "the 53rd Street Co-op".

Closed shops induce a certain kind of melancholy in me, but that feeling is lessened in this case by the fact that Mr. G's was a pretty atrocious grocery store. It's only virtues were that it was one block away from my apartment and the staff was pretty universally nice and helpful. But it was frequently completely out of bread, which gave it a kind of Soviet-bloc feel. It would sometimes display raw seafood right as you walked into the store, which was shocking and unappetizing, but made sense when you walked by the meat aisle, which often smelled of something like formaldehyde. It only occasionally carried any parmesan cheese, stocking something called "parmesano reggianito" from Argentina instead. And it was always out of every kind of sparkling water except for flavored kinds, which would sit on the shelves for weeks. Only when people reluctantly bought up the remaining bottles did they restock with the regular, refreshing kind.

Apparently Mr. G's is being taken over by Hyde Park Produce, which will be a serious improvement. And it looks like the general manager of the Co-op resigned this week.