Buffalo Rising Online

The question is wrong. Of course they should come to Buffalo. Buffalo can benefit from almost any company that comes in to set up shop. The question should be "What do these and other companies need in order to make Buffalo a market they want to be in". The second question then needs to be what needs to be done to provide for their needs so that they do come in.

By the way TJ's is not anything like Wegmans. TJ's would basically be just a small department in a Wegmans store. There is the rub. With Wegmans as a standard WNY's might not understand the Trader Joe's concept.

I've been to both stores, i like them, it would be good to see them expand here. But it's good when anyone wants to expand here, it says that they have confidence in our community.

BUT, we already have places similar to these two places. From Wegmans, Gercios, Feel Rite, Dash's, Lex Co-Op, Tops, Federal Meats, ect. It seems as if most of us will feel better about ourselfs just because we have a Trader Joes.

What do we need to attract them? I think we have everything they look for. Google there demographic requirements, we exceed them. I think they are afraid of the competion. No grocery store will want to compete against wegmans and Tops. Those are gaints in this industry. Wegmans is the premier grocery store in america.

I routinely get out of town clients in from florida, texas, cali.......i ask them where they want to go to lunch...... Some of them have actually said Wegmans. Who goes to Wegmans for lunch? They love the place. We have something that MOST communities don't.

I'll take what we have over a couple TJ or Whole Foods any day of the week.

Absolutely one of these places should make it to Buffalo. The Quality Market spot on Elmwood would be ideal for either. I love wegmans on Amherst but do think that Whole foods character would fit well with the whole elmwood theme and environment. It would help create and evolve elmwood as it is already doing and make it even better

Trader Joes is a fantastic store but keep dreaming about it coming to Buffalo in the near term. Why? Because in New York they only have stores in New York City, and Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties. There is no distribution system for a 10,000-square-foot store in Buffalo.

They first need to expand into Rockland, Orange and Dutchess Counties first. Then they could expand to Albany and Binghamton. After that, the north country and Syracuse. After that, Rochester. Once they have been established in all these areas, then they will come to Buffalo.

Estimated date - 2015

well said rubygreta.

They really aren't the status symbol that many make them out to be. Would they be great to have in WNY? Absolutely. Whole Foods (also called Whole Paycheck) is a mini-Wegmans (50-60k sq.ft. or so, or half the size of a typical Wegmans). YAWN. Trader Joes- decent wine selection, and some natural and frozen foods. TJoe stores aren't large- I'm guessing 10,000 sq.ft. and they're not all that attractive inside. I rarely go to either of them.

There's a Whole Foods in University Heights ...

University Heights, Ohio.

Before opening this thread, I knew the "We don't need Whole Foods. Besides, we've already got the Lexington Co-op and Feel Rite here" posts would be plentiful. Comparing Whole Foods to either one of those places is like comparing Lowe's to Hector's Hardware. Stores like Whole Foods and TJ's aren't like "mini-Wegmans", either. They're definitely not like health food and vitamin stores such as Feel Rite, either. Different brands, different format, different target market.

A bit of mythbustng: chains with corporate-owned locations usually don't stay out of a market because of competition. They don't care. The hundreds of red-sauce-and-checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurants didn't keep Olive Garden out of the Buffalo market, nor did Perkins, IHOP or Friendly's fear the many Greek diners and family restaurants that are a staple of Western New York dining. Site location specialists draw a radius around a site, and look at :

• Population living in a certain radius (mileage and driving time).

• Percentage of families versus singles in a certain radius.

• Average family and household income in a certain radius.

• Average age of the population in a certain radius.

• Cumulative income of all people in a certain radius.

• Education level in a certain radius.

• Number of jobs in a certain radius.

• Traffic volume at a location.

• Utility availability at a location.

• Proximity of other mid- and high-end retail development (positive).

• Proximity of low-end commercial development (negative).

• Property size and geometry.

• Potential return on investment.

One reason high-end chains steer clear of Buffalo is that the demographics just don't work; city or suburbs. They prefer to be in the heart of an area that is solidly upper-middle-class for miles around; Oakland County, Michigan; the Heights/Hillcrest/Chagrin Vallley suburbs east of Cleveland; Johnson County, Kansas; and so on. The eastern suburbs of Rochester are borderline, and Amherst/Clarence doesn't come close. They'll come to the Buffalo area only after they've exhausted most other locations where their paper pushers calculate they can get a greater return on their investment.

Whole Foods isn't coming to Buffalo. A while ago, they announced that their New York state expansion plans would be limited to the NYC area. The closest Whole Foods stores are in Toronto and east suburban Cleveland. They have the distribution network to serve Buffalo now, but they're not coming. Just like Wegmans, Whole Foods found that there's more money to be made in the Northeast Corridor.

TJ's is very secretive about their expansion plans. In the past, they looked for locations where there was a large market of "overeducated and underpaid" customers; Buffalo would have been perfect. Now, like Whole Foods, TJ's prefer locations that are SOLIDLY upper income. The nearest TJ's are in lifestyle centers in Woodmere and Westlake, Ohio; both locations that are surrounded by miles and miles of SOLID upper-income East Amherst/Eagle Heights/Spaulding Lake-like development.

I don't know about the plans or site selection criteria of Wild Oats, Fresh Market, or the others.

Whole Foods is great b/c you can get all stoned up and walk down the aisle and talk organically about organic things. Trader Blows does have a great cheap wine and trail-mix selection.

Face it, Wegman's is better than both stores and actually cares about their employees. Why put money into some national box when we can pour it into somebody's pocket in Rochester, at least they spend the money locally in different ways.

I've been to all these stores in various places and here's the basic rundown in my mind:

1. Most important: Buffalo needs a major grocer within the consolidated downtown area where the growing residential population can benefit from it and the store can benefit from them.

2. Since this issue presents itself alongside (ie as similar to) the need for retailers (especially national retailers since these, for a number of reasons indicate 'healthy city' status in peoples' minds) downtown, people tend to fold the conversations together. This is how a post about H&M ends up on Whole Foods. These issues are separate and should be kept separate. IKEA, H&M, GAP, Whole Foods, and TJ's serve different purposes in the community.

3. Next to each other TJ's, Whole Foods, and Wegmans are all different. Christina's characterization is correct. Whole Foods is Lex Coop on a slightly larger scale, with much higher prices. TJ's is like a Baby Wegmans with better interior design. Think of it like a single specialty section within a Wegmans. The only thing TJ's has that Wegman's doesn't (that would make any difference in my life) is Two Buck Chuck.

4. OK so that's not the only thing... TJ's has name brand recognition with yuppies and hipsters. If that's why you want a TJ's then fine, but admit it. You want the yups and hipsters in other "cooler" places to recognize your stuff as cool.

5. Wegmans is better than both TJs and WFs in price, convenience, and in my experience service. Why? Well for one Wegmans is semi-local so they don't feel as though WNY doesn't deserve or can't support high-end service. So, in my mind Wegmans gets automatic points just for opening here and having a longstanding record of service in our area. Also, the stores are all-inclusive. I don't have to run from regular grocer to Whole Foods to get both my boring everyday stuff and the fresh organic produce or specialty bulk items I want.

6. The fact remains a major, high quality grocer is needed and desired somewhere that it can be accessed easily by city residents (who live south of more suburban North Buffalo strip mall environments).

Wegmans is already serving WNY, performs at the level of TJ's and Whole Foods (minus "cool-kid" approval from Coastal Cool Kids) and whatever Wegmans might not do (not a huge selection of bulk grains or organic nut butters) there's always the Coop.

Conclusion: Unless you really want to hold out for brand recognition so you can feel less slighted by coastal-city anti-Buffalo biases, focus your attention on getting Wegmans to open an urban-design-friendly location somewhere where it can easily be accessed by EV, Parkside, and Downtown loft dwellers where the residential density and growth potential exists and is already in motion.

> focus your attention on getting Wegmans to open an urban-design-friendly location somewhere where it can easily be accessed by EV, Parkside, and Downtown loft dwellers where the residential density and growth potential exists and is already in motion.

Wegmans is no longer opening new stores in upstate New York. Almost ALL new Weggies that are going to be built in coming years are going to be in the Northeast Corridor. You'll see tens of new Wegmans stores in New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, southeastern Pennsylvania, Northern Virginia and downstate New York before you see another new one in Buffalo or even Rochester. Wegmans is CLOSING their older, smaller stores in Rochester. They've written off expanding to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, even though they have the distribution network to serve stores in those areas.

Jules, what Wegmans are you going to that a vegetarian can't find fresh produce? Maybe I've been spoiled by the ones I've frequented most in my life (Syracuse-Dewitt and Ithaca, NY locations) but I've always found Wegmans more than sufficient (in both produce and prepackaged items), for my family's mostly-vegetarian mostly-organic low gluten diet. The only second trip we have to make is to Byrne Dairy for inexpensive non-Rbst milk in reusable glass jugs.

Here is some national Wegmans love that you may have missed. Buffalo native Gregg Easterbrook (contributing editor for The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Monthly, author of "The Progress Paradox") writes a weekly football column called "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" for ESPN.com (http://sports.espn.go.com/keyword/search?searchString=Gregg_Easterbrook&rT=sports). Buried in this week’s column was this item:

Bonus Obscure Score: St. John Fisher 38, Curry 7. (Division III playoffs.) Located in Rochester, N.Y., St. John Fisher College has a school of nursing endowed by Robert Wegman, founder of the supermarket chain. Located mainly in non-booming old-industrial areas such as upstate New York and central Pennsylvania, Wegmans are the greatest supermarkets out there. Many Wegmans have entire internal food courts of higher quality than most delis and Italian restaurants. When, oh when, will a Wegmans open near me?

Gregg resides in suburban Washington, DC, home to at least a dozen each of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. My glass-half-full take on it: Whole Foods won't ever come to Buffalo, because they know they aren’t up to the competition from Wegmans. I live in Annapolis and when my fiancée would mention she was a pharmacist at Wegmans residents of Maryland and Virginia who have been there wouldn't shut up with their praise. The only negative comment would be that the store was too busy.

Buffalo indeed needs more food market options; having both of these in the City would benefit everyone. Why not think of a space (other than Elmwood, dare I say it) that has some more space in Buffalo that would benefit from a grocery store. Possibly down Main St, where more redevelopment is going on - Northamption - Coe area. Just a thought, making Main St. more pedestran and shop friendly. The more shopping opportunities on Main, the more people will be apt to more there. Think about it.

> iWhole Foods won't ever come to Buffalo, because they know they aren’t up to the competition from Wegmans.

Wegmans in the DC area isn't stopping Whole Foods and Trader Joe's from expanding there.

I've spoken at length to retail and restaurant site selection specialists. When they look at sites, COMPETITION IS NOT A FACTOR. In fact, national retailers and restaurants often prefer to be close to their competitors. In economic and geography theory, it's called "agglomeration of resources." It's why some intersections have gas stations on all four corners, why so many cities have "auto miles" and "furniture rows", why there are hundreds of electronics dealers in Tokyo's Akihabara district, and why there are countless Italian restaurants on Hertel Avenue.

Do you taste the corn syrup? Did you know the difference when you were 10 or did something happen when you were in pittsburgh that made corn syrup offensive to you?

Corn syrup does matter. It is high in sugar. It matter a lot for diabetics, hypo- and hyper- glycemics for whom hidden ingredient hunting is an everyday necessity for life. It also matters for people who want to minimize the amount of sugar (which is first to turn into fat and/or produce mood swings) they put into their bodies.

That new Giant Eagle in Sliberty, or east Liberty to non yinzers in Pittsburgh still sucks. The product is surely better at that location but I don't understand the people who work in any dirty bird. Every time I used to go to any Giant Eagle, even the nicer ones, the employees were frowning, short and not very knowledgable. This is where Wegmans gets it! The people who work there for the most part seem to give a s**t and can complete a sentence or two. Aside from the one Giant Eagle Marketplace, and maybe the one at the waterfront in Pittsburgh it is depressing to simply walk in!

And it only gets worse the further south you go for the most part as most of you surely know- From Giant Eagle to the bottom of the barrel Publix, Albertsons and Winn Dixie when I lived in S. FLA-Awful. Wegmans is great and I just go to TJ's for Chuck, and quick stuff to compliment my large Wegmens haul every month. TJ's would do fine in Buffalo, Wegmans would say bring them on, they have nothing to worry about.

for a region that makes an average of $33k / yr, you sure worry a lot about overpriced liberal organic crap. Shop local and support companies that gave your parents, your kids, and yourselves jobs.

I think Wegman's is awesome, but I would cross town to go to TJ's.

That's exactly what I did when I lived in Pittsburgh.

It was worth it. It would work in Buffalo, city or suburbs (but my vote is city!)

And I don't think it would hurt the co-op, Wegman's or Guercio's. Co-op is a different market, Wegmans is big enough and many TJ's shoppers would still buy a lot there, and Guerico's has a devoted following (and is way better in terms of produce and italian specialties--two things that aren't so great at TJ's (Their strengths happen to be some of my favorite foods: wine, frozen seafood, cheese. All three are higher quality than most stores AND lower price--amazing!)

Hmmm. Maybe based on this premier gourmet is the one that should dread the coming of Joe. (may it be so!)

Oh yeah. Whole Foods? Way too expensive. If I am going to spend that much money and buy organic food, I will do it at the co-op.

while I'd welcome them...I'm also in the Wegmans crowd...

their organic section grows daily...

I know they don't offer everything the other two do...but they offer a lot that the other two don't...

i think Trader Joe's could find a spot...but I'd rather be more selective in buying at Wegmans, supporting WNY, and supporting a company that treats its employees well (i'm not saying whole foods or trader joe's do not)...

all this being said...wegman's may stand to make some loot if they branch out into some different store models...I'd love to see a downtown wegmans...corner of swan and main, that surface lot...would be perfect..here is where they should look to whole foods to see urban store examples...

jsk...I understand what you're saying...but wegmans could come in ahead of the curve...

and if they include a ramp on the back end of it, it can be used for baseball, hockey, and downtown workers...thats a lot of money...

i'd venture that a lot of downtown workers would love the option to shop downtown before they went home...especially if those who "only shop" had free parking (whole foods does that in San Francisco)...

not to mention all the prepared foods they have...people are always looking for a new place to eat...

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Buffalo,+NY,+United+States+of+America&ie=UTF8&ll=42.881165,-78.875281&spn=0.001789,0.003616&t=h&z=18&om=1

people are always complaining about downtown parking...

i work in the hsbc building...besides a few small floors below the building, and one ramp at exchange/washington, there's nothing indoors...

I wouldn't get too bent over the fact that there is no Trader Joe's yet in Buffalo. The entire states of Texas and Florida have a combined total of zero Trader Joe's. Does anybody think that Texas, Florida, or Buffalo couldn't support one? Of course not. They'll make it to Buffalo, don't worry. I've been to the one in Massachusetts and the one in Glendale, California and it would definitely fit in well here in WNY, and would be a great development especially downtown. The question, as Steel mentioned, is how do we make ourselves attractive for Trader Joe's to want to come here? I'm not quite sure except maybe just let time go on and as they keep expanding to every city they'll eventually get here. I think we could actively court Trader Joe's by everyone bombarding their website here http://traderjoes.com/contact_us_selection.html with Buffalo location requests.

> All the profits from Whole Paycheck go to Texas. All the profits from TJ's go to California. Let's support places like Guercio's, the Co-op, and Wegmans. At least the profits stay local.

Hear hear! Residents of Chicagoland should only patronize locally-owned hand car washes instead of Delta Sonic, Phoenix residents should boy hot dogs from local roach coaches instead of Ted's, and everyone else throughout the Northeast and Midwest should buy locally produced fabric and hire local seamstresses and tailors to make theirformalwear by hand instead of renting tuxedos at Tuxedo Junction. Sportsfans everywhere should bring their food to the stadium, instead of patronizing concession stands owned by out-of-town companies like Delaware North. Thank God Clevelanders ran the out-of-town-based Tops out of town; maybe the good people of Rochester and Erie will do the same to the non-locally owned grocery store chain. Patronize ONLY local businesses! Support the locally-owned Boston Bruins, and boycott the Rochester-owned Sabres and Detroit-owned Bills! GO BRUINS!

A friend from Paris visited a few years ago and was in awe of Wegmans, she called it a food museum.

Is Dan from Bflo??? Anyone who knows me gets sick and tired or how I praise my City. They think Buffalo is the center of the universe, ain't it. though?

I want to be realistic here. With Wegman's firmly positioned in the Buffalo and WNY market--with a focus on growing their organic and/or 'whole foods' business that caters to a limited percentage of the populus...in addition to locally operated Feel Rite Fresh Markets...and The Lexington Co-Op...I would think that the decision-makers at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's would rate this as a market that is simply 'not ready for us.'

We're currently rated as one of the poorest cities in the nation...young, educated people are leaving by the busload, an aging population, two fiscal control boards in place, and questionable government leadership--that's led to multiple failures to develop a waterfront, close a favorable deal with Bass Pro, or build a bridge.

Unlikely and unfortuante.

Yes

This is important? My God, we're about to enter a world-wide depression!

...there are already rumors of Trader Joe's coming to Amherst, specifically the lifestyle center that's planned for Maple Road near the Pepsi Center.

This "Amherst" you speak of is not relevant to the question asked in this article's title. It clearly asks if it should come to Buffalo. BUFF. A. LO.

And if the rumors come true, that would be just typical of Amherst's Earth-polluting millionaires and wanna-be millionaires to steal a Trader Joe's away from Buffalo's working people and working people sympathizers - before we even have a Trader Joe's of our own. First they take UB and now a few decades later possibly this too. When will it ever end? And it sounds like they even have some whole center full of Pepsi. Meanwhile Buffalo gets what - a noisy park with some fat squirrels? That's supposed to be fair? Don't they know about sharing and regionalism? Sign the petition to keep Amherst's greedy hands off of our idea to request a Trader Joe's!

I don't get it.... Wegman's is one of the top rated supermarkets in the country and one of the best employers in the country. It is regionally a local brand that highly supports local farmers. Tops is another albeit different model but good stores, also local-ish. Dash's is growing very popular and has good quality foods.

This along with the growing number of popular farmers markets, CSA and other food ventures what is the big deal about a TJ's.. sure competition is good and I don't think they shouldn't come here but it really isn't a big deal. I bet people who have trader joes around would love to have a wegmans or co-op, or access to fresh local foods like we do.

Are we going to pander over a Win-Dixie next once we get a TJ's. Sometimes it is sad that we feel less of ourselves because we dont have some supermarket chain that most people don't know or care about. It isn't like this store is going to bring people or jobs to the area, add to the street life of a neighborhood. Odds are it would just sit in a parking lot somewhere and become forgotten about in a year.

Remember that huge pandering over Krispy Kreme when they moved here.. that was a HUGE waste of emotion. Their dough nuts blow, probably don't contain anything remotely close to real food considering you can leave them in their box for 4 months without them spoiling (I know I did that in college once). BUT it is a new national chain.. give it a rest. We have some of the best food in the country. Trader Joe's isn't going to do anything to improve our life in Buffalo.

I have shopped at both trader joes and whole foods and while I can appreciate both I'll take wegmans over them any day. trader joes was nice when you needed just a couple of things, but when I lived in LA I preferred to shop at Gelsons. It was just the right size, had a great selection and although it was a little over priced it was close and convenient.

lets just be happy with what we have (wegmans) since it's a great store and the money we spend stays in the area.

Whoever compared Giant Eagle to Wegmans is insane. I lived in Cleveland for 2 years and every Giant Eagle I went to was a shithole! It was like walking into Jubilee in Angola...

Sorry, Jules. You'll never convince Booster Bill and Patriot Patricia. From the Field Guide to Buffalo's Armchair Planners:

Booster Bill and Patriot Patricia

Also known as: Buffaholics, Loganberry Drinkers

Number: not very common, but very visible and vocal.

Age: early 20s to mid 50s.

Place of residence: mostly in the city and the first ring suburbs, although the suburban members of the group are often in the closet about their location.

Occupation: finance, marketing, publishing, economic development.

Planning experience: Mark Goldman, Jane Jacobs, Richard Florida and other urban pundits? Too negative. They have some economic development and Buffalo history-related classes in college to their credit, though.

Reads: Buffalo Spree, Buffalo Rising, Buffalo News, Buffalo CVB publications, and any of the books on Cynthia Van Ness's (excellent) Buffalo Fiction list.

Usually sighted at: mostly the same places as Allentown Alan and Elmwood Emma, but not afraid to venture beyond the West Side and North Buffalo ... because all of the Niagara Frontier is fantastic! Difficult to find outdoors on Friday nights, because most retreat to dumpy but "real" taverns for the obligatory fish fry.

Armchair planner beliefs: * Every aspect of Buffalo -- food, schools, people, architecture, music, weather, natural surroundings, and urban environment -- is far superior to that of every other metropolis in North America. Everything about Buffalo is also more "real", too; it's not "fake", "corporate" or "plastic" as in places that actually have a growing population. * Taxes, weather, de-industrialization, white flight, blue-collar attitudes and corrupt politics are just exaggerated excuses for Buffalo's alleged malaise. Buffalo's biggest problem: it's collective low self-esteem. If locals only knew how great the area was, and how awful everyplace else is, Buffalo's potential would be unlimited. * The key to Buffalo's revitalization: it's great as it is! Look out, though, when those tired of sanitized, plastic, fake and placeless cities finally discover the Niagara Frontier, the last outpost of "authenticity" in the country. * Also Buffalo's savior: smooth-flowing traffic. It's not an indicator of a struggling economy, but rather outstanding transportation planning. * All those things common to other cities and regions that are lacking in the Buffalo area, such as dog parks, upscale chain stores and restaurants, weekly free alternative newspapers, lifestyle centers, eclectic cuisines, new urbanist development, smart growth, form-based zoning with design review, and expanding light rail transit systems? Just "fee-yads" that will make Buffalo seem just like sterile, placeless Phoenix or Raleigh if they come to the region. * Brain drain, expanding urban prairie, ethnic insularity, racially segregated neighborhoods, Members Only jackets and Zubaz, machine politics, a tiny black middle class, high property taxes, depressed real estate values, flipping, and a large elderly population? Well, some other places have some of those problems, too. * Chain stores and restaurants are bad, bad, bad! Except for Wegmans, Anderson's, Teds, Mighty Taco, Bagel Jay's, Hoagie Brothers, Mike's Giant Subs, John and Mary's, Valu, Hector's Hardware ...

Armchair planner quotes: * "There's plenty of jobs in Buffalo! If you can't find work, you aren't looking hard enough. People that move down south for work are just lazy and weak. Besides, Charlotte's fakeness and 120% humidity will eventually push them back." * "You can't shovel a hurricane or an earthquake!" * "Why do you need supermarkets like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods? They're overrated. Besides, the Lexington Co-op is much better. It's also authentic, and has more character than those overpriced yuppie chains." * "It took me three hours to drive a mile on the Perimeter in Atlanta at midnight, but I can drive from Lewiston to Orchard Park in twenty minutes during rush hour!"

What they're doing to help: keeping the Talking Proud! campaign alive 25 years after it officially ended, making the city's problems worse by completely ignoring them.

Best defense against attack: forget it. They have an answer for everything. Right-wing radio talk show hosts, Pyongyang tour guides and Linux fanboys take their lessons from these guys.

I'd shop at WF in a minute if they came here. Heck, I'd even drive from my Bidwell Apt to Clearance if that's what it took. It's a great store with great products. I never really liked Wegmans and I currently shop at Tops and the Co-op. Wegmans is over the top with the "we're the best at everything" attitude. I find Tops has a better organic sections and lower prices. My produce comes from the Co-op.

Jules--what could you possibly mean?? As far as backwater and insular---that would more aptly apply to self-conscious foodies who troll the aisles of Whole Foods and Trader's Joe thinking that food and cusine is a badge of sophistication or virture. It's not--that kind of thinking is truly insular and small. Buffalo always struck me as having a refreshingy mature attitude about food. I have never had any trouble finding organic foods, meats, produce, baked goods, ethnic foods in Buffalo.

[ElmwoodHipster]

> there isn’t even an Ethiopian restaurant in this city!

Who needs Ethiopian food in Buffalo? We've already got the best red-sauce southern Italian food in the country. Ethiopian food is just sponge bread and lentils, anyhow. EAT LOCAL!! Chicken wings, beef on weck, haddock fish fry, loganberry juice, Genesee Cream Ale, butter lambs, sponge candy, horseradish mustard, sweet Margherita pepperoni pizza and Chiavetta. Buffalonian cuisine is better, more authentic and more real than the sanitized, plastic food eaten everywhere else on the planet. People elsewhere would trade a hundred oddball ethnic and upscale restaurants for a Mighty Taco.

GO BILLS!

[/ElmwoodHipster]

Dan --- Genesee Cream Ale is not local --- that's Rochester local.... FLYING BISON, BABY

Personally if I ate all Bflo food, I'd probably weigh 20 tons. I can't afford that.

> Personally if I ate all Bflo food, I'd probably weigh 20 tons. I can't afford that.

Yeah, but it would be real, authentic, local Buffalo-style obesity. You wouldn't have that plastic, fake, corporate "healthy" look that stuck-up yuppies throughout the world are aspiring to. Besides, Buffalo has the best health care system in the country, so your obesity-related medical conditions can be treated, and the benches at Ralph Wilson Stadium are really strong. GO BILLS!

Jules,

I feel sorry for you because you don't seem to know Buffalo very well, but more importantly because you've swallowed whole all the cliches of the truly insular thinking in this country--which believes that the latest food trends of Portland or Los Angeles are badges of sophistication. If you're not eating high brow enough, that's your fault, not Buffalo's. I can get anything I ever ate in New York or Toronto here, and I'm a broad eater. Whole Foods, with its parking lots and waste, would do nothing but bring the latest suburban pieties to what can still be a refreshingly authentic food shopping experience in Buffalo (not the supermarkets but the smaller markets and bakeries). If the WF's comes, that's fine, I welcome them and I'd go there. But to insult people's eating customs because you have distorted them to fit your own stereotypes is not legitimate.

Anyone who wants to eat Ethiopian raise your hand..

the somali star is pretty good...

jules, buffalo is what it is...i don't understand how we're all supposed to be at fault for no ethiopan restaurant being in the the city...maybe there haven't been any ethiopians here who wanted to open a restaurant...

oh, and I'm now a self-proclaimed foodie too...I'm waiting for my certificate

buffalocat we arent negative...by the way your post sucks

lol jk

Happy Holidays

BRO, that was satire. Did it work?

Sincerely, SOMEONE

Pundit, sometimes comments here seem to not go through. Maybe if multiple people submit at once, some get dropped or something. From what I've seen if it doesn't show up right away it's gone.

Dan -= what is wrong with eating healty?

Eating healthy is for fake yuppies, plastic people and Amher$$$t re$$$ident$$$. Buffalo is the most authentic and genuine city in the country, and the friendly, real people of Buffalo, unlike the rude jerks that typically inhabit the world beyond Western New York, eat real food, not that pretentious organic low-calorie low-carb Whole Wallet stuff. I'll take a real, honest, genuine Yemenese bodega over a Whole Foods, and a Genesee Cream Ale-battered fish fry over free range grain-fed Argentine beef anyday. GO BILLS!

I'd actually love an Ethiopian restaurant in town. The closest one I know of is in Rochester.

Jules, just to be clear: I agree with you about the heath of much of Buffalo's traditional working-class cuisine (wings, pizza, sausage, red sauce and checkered table cloth Italian serving up 8lbs of chicken parm slathered in cheese for one). That's not to say there aren't great and healthy restaurants in Buffalo, there obviously are - but there's no healthy "Buffalo cuisine" place. That shouldn't change, though insofar as one cares about their health they should all think about hitting the wings less - or not at all if that's how far they want to restrict their diet.

Also, as a mostly-vegetarian, low gluten person, I understand your reticence to throw anything down into the stomach. My point was that I personally just don't think Buffalo needs to hold for out for a TJs of WFs in order to improve the downtown grocery scene for BOTH convenience of location and quality. Wegmans downtown + coop + CSAs (of which I'm a member from June-November too) will serve (again, In my mind) just fine. To me, TJs and WFs are popular status symbol-retailers that I, frankly, don't think will come to Buffalo; hence my suggestion to focus on an urban Wegmans.

PS - Dear everyone on BRO, there are more options than one star and five stars (in dining AND scoring comments on BRO).

I never, ever had a bad meal in Buffalo. And I am talking what is to most of you history, folks-- 1955 and forward to this golden age of nothingness. But it might be because I am just a pig at heart. This blog has become too funny, but I enjoy it! Bon appetit!

Dan - So, not following your logic - I live in the City and I tend to eat healthy. So your statement is false.

buffalocat - now people understand how I feel. I know I like 99% of the people here at PRO-BFLO, but further dividing the gap on the 'burbs ain't going to help either.

> I live in the City and I tend to eat healthy.

That city must be the sterile, plastic, artificial, sanitized and yuppified wasteland of Charlotte, then, because no real true, genuine, honest Buffalonian would eat anything that even bears the words "organic", "low-fat", "low-calorie" or "no trans-fats." It's Friday, and God said it's a mortal sin to eat anything but fish fry tonight, so while you all spend a mildly uncomfortable eternity in Purgatory, I'm off to get a double fish fry and a pitcher of Genny Cream at Peter K's. GO BILLS!

> Dan, your comments rock.

Not just rock but 97 Rock, the best, most real, and most authentic album-oriented rock radio station in the country. I bet Slick Tom Tiberi doesn't eat free-range tofu! GO BILLS!

Anyone who's ever been to a city with a lot of Whole Foods stores knows that they integrate themselves into urban neighborhoods (with parking behind and the storefront to the sidewalk for all you New Urbanites), and they act as catalysts for neighborhood growth (like Spot did), actually unlike Wegmans with its parking lots out front (and I am a big Wegmans fan, too). But it sure wouldn't hurt Buffalo to get some options, and one that has proven to be an attractive urban neighbor in cities like DC.

C'mon ... tell me the crowd at Feel-Rite are like this. Tell me that people in Buffalo are just as passionate about a vitamin store that sells some produce as they are abuot TJs, wherever they are located. (Taken with a crappy camera phone at one of the TJ's in Cleveland about an hour ago.)

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/1209/photo0059rr1.jpg

Yes, you CAN still shop at TJ's and eat like a Buffalonian. GO DEM BILLS DER!

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2670/dsc00351wb3.jpg

The frozen pizza is handmade in Italy, and only costs $3. The pasta: Italian, 79 cents. The wings are $6, but they're the best pre-packaged wings I've ever had.

BP> Because that's part of what makes Buffalo such a great place to live. Even if you can't find what you want here, it's at worst a day trip away.

So much for "buying local".

Residents of most other medium-sized metropolitan areas usually don't have to make road trips for those things. We're talking about Buffalo; it's not like some small town in Kansas where people drive all day to a Wal-Mart in Salina to stock up on provisions, but it certainly seems to be turning that way. The cashier at TJs told me that they see quite a few customers from Buffalo, most with two or more carts full of food to take back home. But, hey, if Buffalonians would rather spend $3.35 per gallon to drive to Cleveland to shop at TJ's, Whole Foods, Crate and Barrel and the many other retailers that are EBB, dine on ethnic cuisine that isn't available in a city that constantly boasts about its diversity, and return home on $2.95/gallon gas, just for the sake of keeping Buffalo real and authentic and the way it's always been, be my guest. Coyahoga County needs the tax revenue.

Pundit, I all too often say "word, brother" when reading your blog, but in the case of the growing number of EBB retailers, restaurants and urban amenities, I've got to disagree with you.

GO DER DEM DER BILLS DER GUTDEMMET!

BP> Because that's part of what makes Buffalo such a great place to live. Even if you can't find what you want here, it's at worst a day trip away.

So much for "buying local".

Residents of most other medium-sized metropolitan areas usually don't have to make road trips for those things. We're talking about Buffalo; it's not like some small town in Kansas where people drive all day to a Wal-Mart in Salina to stock up on provisions, but it certainly seems to be turning that way. The cashier at TJs told me that they see quite a few customers from Buffalo, most with two or more carts full of food to take back home. But, hey, if Buffalonians would rather spend $3.35 per gallon to drive to Cleveland to shop at TJ's, Whole Foods, Crate and Barrel and the many other retailers that are EBB, dine on ethnic cuisine that isn't available in a city that constantly boasts about its diversity, and return home on $2.95/gallon gas, just for the sake of keeping Buffalo real and authentic and the way it's always been, be my guest. Coyahoga County needs the tax revenue.

Pundit, I all too often say "word, brother" when reading your blog, but in the case of the growing number of EBB retailers, restaurants and urban amenities, I've got to disagree with you.

GO DER DEM DER BILLS DER GUTDEMMET!

Boz> Anyone who's ever been to a city with a lot of Whole Foods stores knows that they integrate themselves into urban neighborhoods (with parking behind and the storefront to the sidewalk for all you New Urbanites), and they act as catalysts for neighborhood growth (like Spot did),

Very true. The Whole Foods near my house (University Heights/South Euclid, Ohio) is in a LEED-certified building, and sits directly on the sidewalk; it's not a blank wall facing the street, but a store entrance and windows across the entire facade. They have parking on the building roof, which helps to reduce the impervious footprint of the site. Whole Foods was the anchor in the redevelopment of an aging shopping center in an inner-ring suburban area; granted, an area that's predominantly middle-to-high income, but still, an ordinary supermarket wouldn't have the same effect. The Tops that was across the street certainly didn't.

I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods all the time, but it's a great place to browse for specialty items, and occasionally splurge on very high-quality staples. I usually split my grocery shopping between TJ's, Heinen's (a local middle to upper-middle end grocery store chain), and Costco - another company known for treating its employees extremely well, and unfortunately another retailer that's EBB. (Before anyone says it, BJ's isn't the same, just as Dash's. Feel Rite or Habib's Jefferson Avenue Deli and 40 Ounce Emporium aren't substitutes for TJ's. Costco is another retailer, much like Wegmans, TJ's and Whole Foods, whose customers are quite passionate about it.)

Wegmans is great, but I'll take the combination of TJ's, Whole Foods and Costco over a Weggies anyday.. The large Asian, Italian, Mediterranean/halal, Kosher and Hispanic grocery stores are icing on the cake.

Go ahead .. one star away, because this post doesn't reflect the BR party line of "Buffalo is teh greatest city evar!!!!11!!one". I know it's coming.

Pundit, I think I know the answer to an earlier question of yours. While whose elsewhere in the country enjoy the food sold at TJ's and Whole Foods, and Buffalonians recover from last night's beer-battered fish fry (two-for-one with the standard Entertainment coupon; a bargain to ensure one's soul won't find itself in the eternal mugginess of Purgatory), Buffalo Rising eats yummy posts.

I learned a long time ago: when posting on BR, select all, copy, "Add Your Comment"' and paste if the BR server was hungry and decided to eat your post.

HEY DER! GO DER DEM DER BILLS DER!

buffalocat> I'll never understand why people have to get so mean on Buffalo Rising.

Defensiveness of the region, regardless of its shortcomings, has long been a major part of the Buffalo psyche.

"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is the best modern art gallery in the world!" "Blizzards? Yeah, they're bad, but you can't shovel a hurricane or earthquake. I don't know why so many millions of people flock to California and Florida, instead of Buffalo. This only proves Buffalonians are the most intelligent people in the country." "We don't need an Ikea. Besides, all their furniture is cheap particle board crap, and we have the far superior Furniture Discount Factory Warehouse Outlet Superstore on Military Road." "Say whatver you will about Main Street, but it has a more authentic, genuine and real feel than Younge Street in Toronto."

Buffalonians often defend Buffalo much the way Sudanese defend Islam; blindly, and with great fervor.

YOU KNOW DAT DER FOOTBALL TEAM DER IN DA TAHNUHORCHARDPARK'S DER? GO DEM DER BILLS!!

buffalocat> I'll never understand why people have to get so mean on Buffalo Rising.

Defensiveness of the region, regardless of its shortcomings, has long been a major part of the Buffalo psyche.

"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is the best modern art gallery in the world!" "Blizzards? Yeah, they're bad, but you can't shovel a hurricane or earthquake. I don't know why so many millions of people flock to California and Florida, instead of Buffalo. This only proves Buffalonians are the most intelligent people in the country." "We don't need an Ikea. Besides, all their furniture is cheap particle board crap, and we have the far superior Furniture Discount Factory Warehouse Outlet Superstore on Military Road." "Say whatver you will about Main Street, but it has a more authentic, genuine and real feel than Younge Street in Toronto."

Buffalonians often defend Buffalo much the way Sudanese defend Islam; blindly, and with great fervor.

To avoid getting the dreaded single star, I'll conclude with this:

YOU KNOW DAT DER FOOTBALL TEAM DER IN DA TAHNUHORCHARDPARK'S DER? GO DEM DER BILLS!!

I dare you to one-star this photo. C'mon ...

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1062/dsc00353uv3.jpg

Dan makes sense sometimes, but much of his recent comments are getting way off track including his implication that a handful of BR commenters arguing against TJs or anything else is meaningful. There's almost nothing that gets 100% approval in a forum like this, so making a big deal out of a few commenters is pointless.

Jules has a good point that letter writing can have impact, but IMHO that would be a secondary factor a company like TJs would consider, supplementing market research economics/demographics data and other strategic issues. Money talks. B.S. (pro or con) walks.

Although Buffalo and Pittsburgh are both shrinking fast, Pittsburgh's metro area still has over double the population of Buffalo's (2.7 million vs. 1.2 million). Pittsburgh is HQ to seven (7) Fortune 500 cos (Alcoa, Allegheny Tech, Heinz, Mellon Financial, PNC, PPG Industries, WESCO, U.S. Steel), while Buffalo is HQ to only one (M&T).

Maybe rumors Pundit mentioned about TJ's considering Amherst will come true, and the TJ's portion of this debate becomes moot. Then outcry over Amherst stealing Buffalo's TJ's can begin (BROKEEPS - that's a joke. Then again, maybe not to some. Can't speak for Steel et al.)

Ironically, it was Dan himself who way above posted some logical reasons that stores consider:

chains with corporate-owned locations usually don't stay out of a market because of competition. They don't care. The hundreds of red-sauce-and-checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurants didn't keep Olive Garden out of the Buffalo market, nor did Perkins, IHOP or Friendly's fear the many Greek diners and family restaurants that are a staple of Western New York dining. Site location specialists draw a radius around a site, and look at :

- Population living in a certain radius (mileage and driving time).

- Percentage of families versus singles in a certain radius.

- Average family and household income in a certain radius.

- Average age of the population in a certain radius.

- Cumulative income of all people in a certain radius.

- Education level in a certain radius.

- Number of jobs in a certain radius.

- Traffic volume at a location.

- Utility availability at a location.

- Proximity of other mid- and high-end retail development (positive).

- Proximity of low-end commercial development (negative).

- Property size and geometry.

- Potential return on investment.

One reason high-end chains steer clear of Buffalo is that the demographics just don't work; city or suburbs. They prefer to be in the heart of an area that is solidly upper-middle-class for miles around; Oakland County, Michigan; the Heights/Hillcrest/Chagrin Vallley suburbs east of Cleveland; Johnson County, Kansas; and so on. ... Whole Foods isn't coming to Buffalo. A while ago, they announced that their New York state expansion plans would be limited to the NYC area. ...

TJ's is very secretive about their expansion plans. In the past, they looked for locations where there was a large market of "overeducated and underpaid" customers; Buffalo would have been perfect. Now, like Whole Foods, TJ's prefer locations that are SOLIDLY upper income. The nearest TJ's are in lifestyle centers in Woodmere and Westlake, Ohio; both locations that are surrounded by miles and miles of SOLID upper-income East Amherst/Eagle Heights/Spaulding Lake-like development. ...

This is the most baffling series of comments I have ever read on BRO. It's just food, and food is not sophistication. Who cares about which food stores are in boring suburban Pittsburgh or Cleveland or what anyone in Washington state eats? Why is this even an issue here?

We have a beautiful, wounded, and incredibly interesting city and people are huffing about the lack of Ethiopian food? in an older Northern American city? As if this is a normal concern? That's baffling and provincial.

By the way, Dan's parody of what he thinks Buffalo people are like is painfully not funny. Why do people traffic in cartoons?

Damp, I don't know if TJs secretive about future locations - was quoting one of Dan's comments from before he dun lost it. Many private companies are that way, though.

Eric, I share your indifference about a big need for more food variety but to say it's baffling that some other people care a lot is kind of baffling itself. Haven't you noticed in life that people have a wide variety of passions and tastes? Look at all the comment pillow fights on BR about architecture details, or casinos, or Al Copolla. It's natural there's a wide variety of things people care about, so just to say over and over as you have that other people shouldn't care about it is kind of condescending.

Agree with you about Dan. The "typical Buffalonians" he mocks are as deserving of mocking as any group on occasion, but his pile of comments about it is way overdoing it. Comedy almost always needs a much lighter touch.

Dan's mocking "comedy" was funny...back when he did it the first time a decade ago.

Christa - Regarding smack talk and insults I recall you engaged in that yourself recently toward a commenter whom you disagreed. So any of us can slip up sometimes and type something we should've just thought to ourselves. Nobody's perfect.

But I do agree with you that the personalizing and the them/us garbage happens way too often on this and other blogs. I doubt it will ever change unfortunately. Really it's nothing to do with this topic or any particular terms or store names so I don't get your closing paragraph at all. The southtowns connector threads had a lot of insulting smack against people who dared to prefer the DOT plan. Supermarkets weren't mentioned in those at all.

And btw, as pointed out twice above and should've been obvious from its over-the-top context, the Earth-polluting suburban rich people remark was joking satire making a point against the them/us attitude. Pretty good satire apparently, since no less a subtlety expert as BROKEEPSBLOCKINGME commented that he gathered his coworkers to show them, and he gave it three LOLs. So lighten up about that one. Maybe you're not eating the proper amount of corn syrup (j/k).

Buffalo Pundit, Actually there is seriously hefty wealth in Buffalo (the city), but it's mostly in the hands of an older generation that is not much concerned about grocery trends. I don't mean to condescend--being baffled is just my honest reaction to what seems a distorted claim of Buffalo's being disadvantacged by not having such or such grocery store. All I know is that I can eat a wonderful spectrum of fresh organic food every day, that I find good ethnic foods, and some really subtly prepared food in many restaurants. I don't think we're suffering.

> So why did they build a store in Ft. Collins CO, pop. 125,000?

I lived in Fort Collins about a decade ago. It's pretty much Amherst-in-the-Rockies, only more health-oriented, more progressive/liberal, more outdoorsy, less sprawly and much, much younger.

At the time, Larimer County (Fort Collins, Loveland, Berthoud) was solidly middle to upper-middle-class, with a very educated population and a dominant outdoors/fitness-oriented culture and lifestyle. FC is very clean, extremely safe, and politically quite progressive; not leftist like Boulder, but still on the leading edge when it comes to local and regional governance, urban planning, and the environment. FC has a vibrant downtown that was packed with families, students, and drum-beating hippies practically every night throughout the year. It's one of those cities where, like Boulder, the sight of overweight people was rare. Demographic groups that are common in WNY -- the elderly, the working/lower-middle-class, and urban poor -- were also rare; a few trailers north of the Cache La Poudre, and that's about it.

The Front Range doesn't really have an equivalent to Wegmans. The major supermarket chains include King Soopers, Safeway, and Albertson's; nothing extraordinary. Downtown Fort Collins has a Safeway that fronts on the sidewalk, with underground parking.

Those demographic "groups" are real people actually, and they are common to all older cities with complex racial and social histories. Fort Collins wouldn't know about that yet.

Remember ... all of the problems the city faces comes from 1 of 4 places:

1. Unions 2. Bad Politicians 3. High Taxes 4. Unions

Chew on that

I think the writer fundamentally misunderstands Trader Joe's and Whole Foods both. I'm a Buffalo native and live in Atlanta, and have both of those near my house, and shop at them regularly. Neither Trader Joe's nor Whole Foods is really a one-stop shop like a major supermarket - Topps or Wegman's in Buffalo, Kroger or Publix here in ATL. You can't get Cheerios at either one. You can't get major national brands at either one. They're lousy places to buy toilet paper or dog food. Their marketing philosophies are as follows.

Trader Joe's has only one brand: Trader Joe's. They get supplies from small artisanal suppliers who probably can't market nationally, significantly but not entirely organic, and then put their own brand on it. And they have absurdly low prices on many things, particularly the organic items which are usually overpriced at .... places like Whole Foods.

Whole Foods may have been close to the Lexington Co-op years ago. But now it is home to meat or fish that sell for $20 a pound (gorgeous, and sometimes organic or natural or sustainable) and is mostly pitched to the hostess with the mostest - high end, good service, high cost. Lovely fresh deli, but you better get a bank loan if you're catering a small dinner party from it. Great bread and baked goods. Gorgeous produce, but too much overpriced organic stuff. Too much attention is paid to vegans and politically correct food. Remind me, is selling $15 a pound steaks, politically correct? Whole Foods shoppers fall into one of twor or three categories: a) former hippies who are now the aging rich b) Neurotic single women vegans who can pay these prices because they're only shopping for one and don't eat meat, or c) Generation X or Y moms who trend organic. Trader Joe's draws a lot of smart shoppers who won't go near Whole Paycheck.

Trader Joe's which opened here a year or two ago, has shown real genius in its marketing; I'm particularly impressed with their small, already-prepped roasts and chicken dishes, which are the right size for an average family, convenient and priced right. They have reengineered a lot of aspects of the shopping experience, right down to the Hawaiian shirts the cashiers wear, to the redesigned carts and checkout lanes, to the legendary "Two Buck Chuck" bottles of wine (currently $2.49) of major varietals, all quite serviceable. I love buying a pound of already shelled pistachios for $6. You can get a lot of things for $2.99 a pound at TJ's that would cost $2.99 for 6 ounces at the supermarket or Whole Foods.

Buffalo doesn't need to contemplate whether either of these would replace Wegman's or Topps. The latter two are fine supermarkets and Buffalo is lucky to have them. Wegman's service and variety make it comparable to Publix down here; Topps (particularly Topps International) has international variety neither Publix nor Kroger could touch in a million years.

What Trader Joe's and Whole Foods offer is types of food the big chains don't focus on - bulk grains, whole grains, bulk dried fruits and nuts included, not just the things I've already mentioned. They add variety. They are obviously where you want to shop if you care about organic foods, which most people still don't. They're definitely a plus if you are primarily a supermarket shopper but sometimes think outside the box. I get farro at Whole Foods, or French lentils, which supermarkets around here never stock. The deli there is a nice treat on occasion and several steps up from most supermarket delis, although Wegman's might compete with it.