Shop Different
By Lou Petrucci
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We should tip our hats to Sy Sims because we have all become educated consumers.
Proximity and price are the two factors that dictate how we shop. We frequent the corner store, even though the prices may be higher, because it is close and convenient. We enjoy the ability to walk to our errands or to take a short drive. Time is too precious and gas too expensive to waste in traffic to save a few dollars.
Then there are the consumers who view the search for a bargain as a competitive sport. They will spend their entire Saturday calling retailer after retailer and then driving out of their way to find the best deal. The bargain is the ultimate goal. The lowest possible price gives the purchaser a feeling of accomplishment. Shopping is a battle and a bargain is a victory. The bargain serves double duty as a tale to tell later in the day at dinner to friends. I just bought a new DVD player and you won’t believe what I paid for it.
Everyone has hopped onto the 90/190/290 to visit a strip mall anchored by a large name brand box among a series of smaller name brand boxes to purchase the flavor of the season: a toy that needs to be tickled, the latest video game, the must-have doll of the month, etc. There are times when despite our best efforts to cast our economic vote in our neighborhoods, we are forced out into that strange land of plazas and malls to purchase what is necessary. Another option exists. Take a different road. Try shopping at a country store or a farmers’ market.
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Remember that the ride is part of the experience. Pick up Route 240 in Orchard Park and follow its meandering path through the hamlets of Aurora, Ellicott, West Falls, and Colden. Past the volunteer fire companies advertising chicken dinners and the need for volunteers, past the old farm houses, new builds, and trailer parks, over creeks, and by copses of trees. Past the seller of log homes and perennials, the new driving range and par three golf course, past Butterwood Desserts, the horse farms, and The Dog Bar until you reach the corner of 240 and Heath where the Colden Country Store is located.
Dianne Graf purchased the store in 1986 with a partner and has owned the business herself since 1997. The focus is primarily upon the unique. The Colden Country Store is the type of shop where you can spend hours looking at unusual and whimsical items. The floors are well-worn hard woods, not concrete. The ceilings are tin and original. It is not the type of place where you rush in for a loaf of bread and quart of milk with the car running out front. They don’t sell groceries. The Colden Country Store is somewhere where you buy a gift that the recipient will remember and display.
“We have a little bit of everything. Classic kinds of items that are not going to go out of style. Housewares, home furnishings, and a phenomenal card department. Unusual designs at moderate prices,” is how Dianne Graf describes her store. Her favorite quote comes from her husband, “How can you come in here and not buy anything?”
A rural tradition
The Marilla Country Store is one of the last of a dying breed of retailers whose intended purpose was to serve a rural community. The store performs the additional function as the town post office. We read about sprawl and how it affects rural communities. Driving out Clinton to Two Rod Road, you can witness sprawl in action as farmland—complete with collapsing barns—gives way to new-builds and chain stores.
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Bringing the farm to the city
Supermarkets offer a dizzying variety of products oftentimes twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Would you like fresh raspberries in February? Direct from Chile in a small plastic box, big beautiful raspberries. The flavor may be a bit lacking, but they are available. The produce is picture perfect, but in order to achieve perfection it is shipped green, ripened via gas, and then waxed. Saturday night and you have been working in the yard all day. Suddenly it is 7:30 and you have a hankering for shrimp etouffé. Your friendly neighborhood supermarket is open and offering you all the ingredients that you need. Supermarkets are always there, open and inviting.
Farmers’ markets offer a different shopping experience. They are seasonal in nature and most only operate one or two days a week. What they lack in availability, they make up for in flavor, price, and proximity to the person growing the food. Next to growing the fruits and vegetables yourself, the farmers’ market offers the freshest produce. Because you are buying directly from the grower, the prices are often more reasonable than those in the supermarkets. Farmers’ markets have limitations. The selection depends on what the farmer has decided to grow and what produce is ready to go to market when the farmer starts up his truck.
The Downtown Country Market has been in existence for over twenty years on Main Street between Court and Church every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Their slogan is Bringing the Country Downtown and they have—by featuring over twenty-seven farmers and specialty vendors. Every Thursday downtown employees grab a bag of kettle corn and spend their lunch hours perusing the vendors’ wares ranging from baked goods to flowers, vegetables to home made pastas. Child’s Blueberry Farms offers various syrups that are extraordinary, in flavors such as raspberry, currant, blueberry, and cherry/almond.
The largest and oldest farmers market in Buffalo is the Niagara Frontier Growers’ Co-op Market. Located at the corner of Clinton and Bailey, the market operates year round offering seasonal products. Pumpkins, Christmas trees, annuals, fresh fruits, and vegetables are all offered at the appropriate time of the year. Saturday morning the market swells with crowds of people purchasing bushels of red peppers and flowers for their gardens.
The continuing interest in farmers’ markets is reflected in the number that exist. Angola has a farmers’ market on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m.- 12 noon. The Elmwood Village Farmers’ Market is every Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the corner of Elmwood and Bidwell Parkway. Kenmore, Lancaster, Orchard Park, Southgate Plaza Farmers’ Market, Lewiston, Lockport, and the City of Niagara Falls now all have farmers’ markets.
Supplement your normal routine with something new. Take a drive out to corners of the county you don’t see everyday. Drive a two-lane highway through small towns. Revive the Sunday drive. Shop different.
Louis Petrucci is a Chief Housing Inspector for the City of Buffalo.
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