Chicago’s Treasure Island; most of the Second City never had a clue about you

We often hear odes to how sad it is to see businesses close – particularly if they’re not a part of some large corporate entity or if they in any way try to cater to their specific neighborhoods.

Hyde Park store among those to soon be defunct

Yet let’s be honest, most of us will talk about loving such businesses and their personal touch, but we don’t really care to do anything to support such entities. We’ll go to wherever we can save a buck or two – which is why those places that sell goods in large volume can do so well.

AND BUSINESSES LIKE Treasure Island can claim to be a significant part of history, while having to concede they have no place in the modern world.

Now I’m sure many of you may think you’re lifelong Chicagoans who know everything there is to know about your home city. But you’re probably wondering, “What’s Treasure Island?” Either that, or you’re thinking it’s some old movie that you’ve never bothered to actually watch because it’s in black-and-white, but you might go see it if they’d do a re-make with modern sensibilities starring a Kardashian or two.

Actually, it was a supermarket. A chain, sort of – even though its peak was to have five stores in very select neighborhoods of Chicago.

Which means most of us would have had to make a special trip in order to shop in one of their stores, and most likely we never bothered to.

THE BEST I can do to describe a Treasure Island is to say it was a store that would stock not-so-common staples that would be needed for people interested in cooking some more exotic dishes for their meals.

It most definitely wasn’t Jewel (and I’m not badmouthing Jewel, I live near one and wind up purchasing many grocery items there because of its convenience).

In fact, when Whole Foods began opening their stores throughout the Chicago area, I remember explaining the concept of them to people as being something similar to Treasure Island.

It was actually a book first

Only Whole Foods has gone on an expansion that has caused them to locate in the Englewood neighborhood. A place you’d never have found a Treasure Island store.

IN MY OWN case, I have been in the Hyde Park neighborhood store on a few occasions, and on occasion in their former location on Clark Street (which the last time I happened to walk by I discovered is now a Potash Brothers grocery store). Their other locations that I never managed to patronize were in the Old Town, Lake View and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.

As you can see, they’re pretty much a North Lakefront type entity – with the exception of that Hyde Park location that tries to cater to the segment of Chicago that is in the city because of the University of Chicago and wants to reassert the notion that they're NOT typical South Side Chicago!

Not exactly a place a Sout’ Sider would easily access – particularly since I’m sure he/she would have his/her own specialty shops to access on those occasions they want to purchase select foodstuffs.

Many of which, I suspect, would be of a specific ethnic persuasion.

WHILE RELYING ON the larger-scale stores for the daily supplies of keeping ourselves fed on a regular basis. And in this 21^st Century world, some of us are turning more and more to those businesses that allow us to go on-line to place our grocery orders – and have someone deliver our supplies right to our front doors.

You want to know why a Treasure Island will no longer exist following a couple of weeks from now, it’s mostly because I suspect that the kind of people who would have made the trip to one of these stores are now thinking it more convenient (if not downright trendy) to place a grocery order without having to actually go shopping.

Will we ever miss 'da Jewels' the way some will yearn for Treasure Island?

As for those specialty items that a Treasure Island might have stocked, I suppose I’ll be inclined to hunt down a Whole Foods store (there’s one not far from where I’m living these days) to make those purchases. Although I’ll be honest – I suspect I can get through life without many of those goods.

Treasure Island was evidence of the kind of people many of us would like to think Chicago is all about; when in reality, we’re more than willing to go do “Da Jewels” – with an occasional stop at a neighborhood Aldi’s to get an even better price.

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Same stuff; different label? Or are we destined to shop at Piggly Wiggly?

I find it amusing the degree to which corporate interests own varieties of a product that might have the public think their competing with themselves. 

Is the high-end image of Whole Foods ...

One such example was when the Chicago White Sox last month announced they were going to have an official import beer to be served at the ballpark – that being Modelo Especial.

THERE ARE THOSE people who think that Mexican brand is some sort of exotic, high-end label. Particularly when they start playing with the lime and salt.

Although it turns out the corporate interest that owns the company that produces Modelo also is the one that several years ago bought out Anheuser-Busch. As in Budweiser.

Which may be why Modelo is one brand of Mexican beer I don’t consume. Actually, I just think the taste is unexceptional. Not even particularly lousy. Just kind of pointless. Much like I’d describe Budweiser beer products.

But the money that gets spent on both winds up in the same corporate wallet. I find that to be funny, particularly if there’s someone out there who thinks that drinking Modelo-brand cerveza somehow makes them a more discriminate consumer than someone who quenches their thirst with Bud Light.

THIS SAME REACTION is what I’m feeling Monday upon reading the reports about Whole Foods quite possibly being for sale, and one potential buyer being Albertson’s.

The Boise, Idaho-based company owns supermarkets all over the country, and they operate them under various brand names meant to create the impression of locally-based companies.

In the Chicago-area, Albertson’s is the corporate entity that gives us Jewel and Osco.

,,, destined to become a part of 'da Jewels?'

As in “We’re goin’ to da Jewel’s,” that would like for us all to think of itself as the quintessential Chicago food shopping experience – particularly now that Dominick’s is ancient history.

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT most of us merely rant and rage about our neighborhood Jewel’s store being dirty or depressing or poorly stocked or whatever complaint we feel like making. I shop there because it’s close by; I literally used to live one block from one of their stores.

To people, it won’t matter what the quality is; we’ll want to believe there has to be something better somewhere else. In fact, I think that’s a large part of why Whole Foods (and Trader Joe’s, as well) achieve some success in the Chicago area.

You go in there and see allegedly high-end foodstuffs – even though many of them are merely more expensive versions of what it is you can buy at “da Jewels.”

Will 'Krogering' become a national concept?

Now, it seems Albertson’s is considering placing a bid to buy out Whole Foods. Whole Foods and Jewel could become sister stores. For all those people who are willing to indulge themselves (and clean out their wallets) by spending more for organic produce and other pseudo-sophisticated products, I can’t help but wonder how they’ll react to having to consider themselves as shopping at a Jewel partnership.

BECAUSE I CERTAINLY doubt that this means Jewel would go “high-end.” Although I have noticed some Jewel stores in select communities have gone out of their way to remodel themselves and create the impression that they’re carrying fancier food products so as to compete with the high-end supermarkets such as Whole Foods.

Personally, I wonder what happens if the day comes when all supermarkets wind up finding themselves under one entity and we get generic grocery stories from which to buy our edible products.

 

Will we all someday experience Piggly Wiggly sensation?

We’ll all wind up eating the same thing – and probably wind up paying more for it. Maybe it would even turn out that we’d take interest in which conglomerate winds up winning out as the dominant supermarket. Are we all destined to “go Krogering” for our food – regardless of where we live?

If that’s the case, I vote for the Piggly-Wiggly to prevail. I think it would serve the culinary snobs right to have to shop in one of their stores.

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No loss. I wasn’t buying Tilapia or goat cheese from Whole Foods anyways

I must confess to being surprised by news reports about how the Whole Foods chain of upscale supermarkets said it would no longer stock items made by prison inmates.

No inmate-made goods, that they know of

Largely because I wasn’t aware they were making such goods available for sale.

YOU’D THINK THAT a business so concerned with putting up an image of hoity-toity, high-falutin’ products would think something made by prison inmates was too crude to include.

Then again, the whole point of prison-made products is that they’re so cheap to produce because the cost of labor is so minimal – it amounts to slave labor, which is the only circumstance under which it is legally permissible in this country.

Now I know I have never purchased such products because I’m not particularly fond of goat cheese or tilapia (It’s fish, for those who don’t know). Also, I rarely shop at the local Whole Foods except to occasionally buy a special item or two that aren’t readily available elsewhere.

Also, I’m not sure if I have ever seen the items in question that were produced by Colorado Corrections Industries, which officially exists to try to train prison inmates in skills that might be usable in their post-prison lives.

THE FISH AND cheese products they produce get sold to distributors, who then provide it to various stores – including some of the Whole Foods supermarkets – where it gets sold to the general public.

Although considering how much Whole Foods likes to boast that it includes locally-made products amongst its stock in the stores, I don’t know if any Colorado-made goods would make it to Chicago-area stores.

Tilapia and goat cheese ...

But I’d like to think this move is a beneficial one – because a part of me wasn’t exaggerating when I equated such inmate programs with slavery, even though I realize that the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution that outlawed slavery does permit such forced labor “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

While I understand the concept oft-spoken by corrections officials that such work programs provide inmates with something to do – rather than have them spend all that idle time coming up with ideas of their own that might not be so constructive – the idea that anybody gets to benefit financially from cheap inmate labor still strikes me as being offensive. As if companies can’t benefit if they have to pay legitimate wages for the labor to produce their products or services.

SO PERHAPS IT is a plus that Whole Foods officials in Texas were responsive to protests at their stores in the Houston area to the practice.

... will have to go upscale to remain at Whole Foods

Just as some people get all worked up if they find out that articles of clothing offered for sale may be tied in some way to slave labor (or child labor under extreme circumstances) in foreign countries.

It would seem that the idea of “buy American” is not a protection against products produced under duress. Perhaps we ought to play closer attention to just about anything we buy. No matter how much less it might cost in the long run.

Although that shouldn’t be seen as a blast against people who prefer to shop Wal-mart. For it seems even the upper-scale shopping outlets are capable of getting caught up in this scheme. We really don’t know much about where our goods are made – and probably think of such knowledge as being the equivalent of learning about the process of manufacturing sausages.

Training inmates? Or gaining cheap labor?

BESIDES, THE KIND of people who are inclined to want to buy significant shares of their groceries from Whole Foods are obviously willing to pay a premium for the image they think they’re acquiring. Even if it could be argued that the image itself is fake and not worth the higher price.

The idea that this inmate labor results in cheaper prices for food just doesn’t fly.

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EXTRA: Jewel vs. Dominick’s – another great Chicago debate terminates

Only the clocks remain from Field's. What will survive from Dominick's? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Probably the biggest retail competition in Chicago history was that of Marshall Field’s versus Carson, Pirie, Scott.

There used to be people who would seriously argue (sometimes as vociferously as if the subject matter was Sox versus Cubs) as to which store was better – both at their main locations on State Street and at their other assorted stores throughout the Chicago area.

TECHNICALLY, CARSONS WON that war. Field’s was bought out and converted to give Macy’s a presence in Chicago. Although the old flagship store for Carsons isn’t a a Carsons any longer.

But to those of us who grew up in Chicago in recent years and were just looking for something to bicker about, there was another fight we could fix over.

Best supermarket – Jewel’s or Dominick’s? Personally, I always shopped at whichever one was closest to where I lived at the time – although I became a little more loyal to Jewel during the stint I lived in Springfield, Ill., and it was a choice of a Chicago-oriented supermarket or the more St. Louis-leaning Schnuck’s.

In the big picture, it seems that Jewel’s will win the supermarket war, since the Jewel/Osco brand remains (although many people think it has deteriorated to the point where they prefer buying their groceries at a Wal-mart store, just a few aisles over from the underwear section).

Will its memory be mourned?

THINK I’M KIDDING? The Chicago Tribune reported that Jewel these days has 29.1 percent market share in the Chicago area, compared to only 8.7 percent. Dominick’s literally is lagging behind Wal-mart, which is at a 9.4 percent share and growing.

All of which is what motivated Safeway officials to say Thursday that they’re pulling out of the Chicago market. Which was the only place they used the Dominick’s brand-name.

By early next year, there won’t be any more Dominick’s stores. They will be big, empty storefronts – many of which might sit there for years as blots on their respective neighborhoods/suburban communities.

Da winner, but still champeen?

A fortunate few will get a new life. Although I find it funny that the owner of Jewel/Osco (the oft-maligned Albertson’s) has already reached an agreement to buy four Dominick’s sites to convert them to a Jewel.

WHICH I’M SURE to those people who remained devoted Dominick’s customers to the end will feel like some sort of betrayal – walking into the Dominick’s on Clybourn Avenue or Canal Street only to discover it a part of, “da Jewels.”

Definitely the days when Jewel and Dominick’s provided about two-thirds of the grocery market share for the Chicago metro area are a thing of the past!

Perhaps it’s just a thing of the past to have a general purpose supermarket, as it seems people either like to split between shopping at a store that offers up high-end or scarce foodstuffs – or one that purports to offer convenience in being able to buy groceries while also shopping for clothes or a new set of tires for the car.

The 21^st Century take on the grocery rivalry seems to be something along the lines of Whole Foods versus Wal-Mart (too bad we can't go Kroger-ing in Chicago like I did when I was in college in Bloomington, Ill.). Which definitely means something has been lost if we can no longer quarrel over Dominick’s versus Jewel.

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Losing the self-checkout not much of loss; it slowed things up too often

Will this Jewel self-checkout device ...

I happen to live within one block of a Jewel-Osco supermarket, although not one of the ones that has had its self-checkout lanes taken away.

Which is a move that can’t come soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.

JEWEL OFFICIALS (THE chain is owned these days by Cerberus Capital Management) let it be known Wednesday that they’re going to gradually remove those self-checkout lines that – in theory – allow people to ring up the cost of their own grocery items.

It could be a time-saving move. I’ll be the first to admit to using the self-checkout lanes when all I have is a couple of items to buy. Which is often, because I tend to use the Jewel as a convenience store of sorts. It’s right by where I live.

If I have significant purchases, I often find myself going to other grocery stores (although I’m not of the sort who thinks it essential to make a trip to the nearby Whole Foods store).

But it’s not always a time-saving move.

BECAUSE THE PROBLEM with the self-checkout is that the devices are so overly sensitive.

I have lost count of the number of occasions on which I scanned an item, put it in the plastic bag, and then had my purchase come to a crashing halt!!! All because the scale thought it detected something “off” about the weight.

Which involves then having a real live human being come over to look at the order, figure out that I wasn’t trying to pull a scam on my neighborhood Jewel supermarket, and punch in a special code to allow things to proceed.

... someday be as obsolete as this store décor?

 

That process usually takes enough time to complete that I could have finished the checkout process if I had just gone to one of the checkout lines staffed by a real-live human being.

THERE’S ALSO THE other potential problem – one where an item refuses to scan, which makes the computerized checkout system think that I’m trying to buy an item that the store doesn’t sell.

Even though I picked the item in question right off the store shelves just moments ago.

That always manages to frustrate the real-live human beings who work at Jewel, because they don’t want to have to think much about the items in stock. It’s just supposed to be about scanning the item and letting the computers do the work of calculating prices.

Then, invariably, there are the times when I get stuck behind a person who has enough of a technological mental block that they can’t comprehend how to scan something properly.

THEY WIND UP clogging up the checkout procedures to the point where everybody gets delayed, AND we have to put up with their rants because of their inability to comprehend what it is they are trying to do!

Soon, we will not have these sights. Although it isn’t clear how long it will take to get self-checkout out of the roughly 180 Jewel-Osco stores that exist in the Midwestern U.S.

In theory, these self-checkout lines will be converted into more express lines – thereby making it possible for more people like me who are only purchasing a few items at a time to get through quickly without getting stuck behind the person with the shopping carts full of items; and coupons calling for discounts on virtually every item.

I don’t begrudge people who clip coupons, although there are times when I think these people take their desire to save money to a ridiculous extreme.

SO AS I write this particular commentary, I think about the fact that I soon will have to make a trip to my neighborhood Jewel to pick up a couple of items. I may have to give that self-checkout line at the store a last look.

Although it won’t be something I’ll miss. At least in a checkout lane staffed with a cashier, I can glare at that person when they get slow on the job.

If I try to glare at the self-checkout machine, I just have a lot of people surrounding me suddenly pull their kids a little closer to themselves – warning them to stay away from that “crazy” man trying to buy a loaf of bread or a container of orange juice!

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Looking for a neighborhood market? Or is this just a political deal w/ payback?

By now, I’m sure anybody who cares has heard the “story” – the Whole Foods chain of supermarkets geared toward upscale items is planning to build a new store in the Englewood neighborhood (63^rd and Halsted streets, to be exact).

Will we soon see fliers like this on South Side?

Yes, the same Englewood that is one of the city’s lower-income neighborhoods – and often is the focal point of much of the urban violence that ideological idiots would have you think is taking place across all of Chicago.

THE PEOPLE WHO like the idea see the fact that people who live in that area have to go to some extremes in order to shop for groceries because of the fact that there really isn’t a full-scale supermarket in the area.

Those who hate the idea of Whole Foods say they don’t see the practicality of putting a food retailer whose image is centered around getting the business of upscale customers who want “elite” (allegedly) versions of products in a neighborhood where there would be higher percentages than usual of people relying on LINK cards.

Which, by the way, Whole Foods officials made a point of saying this week that they DO accept.

Personally, I find the latter attitude to be just a bit snotty – almost as though they’re saying certain people aren’t worthy of having a Whole Foods near them. These are the ones who’d rather have the Food4Less chain (an offshoot of the Kroger Co.), because it better fits their image of what Englewood “deserves.”

NONETHELESS, I’M SKEPTICAL over whether Whole Foods will gain much in the way of customer support when the store is finally built (right by the Kennedy-King College campus).

I actually live within a 10-minute drive of a Whole Foods store. Personally, it strikes me as the place where I might go occasionally to pick up a few specialty items if I’m planning to make a special dish or two.

They also do have some vegetable items in their produce section that aren’t readily stocked in the Jewel Foods store that is located one block from where I live.

But I can’t help but think that anybody who does all of their grocery shopping at a Whole Foods is someone so pretentious about themselves and wanting to buy into the store’s upscale image. They definitely have too much money to waste.

PERSONALLY, I WONDER what Whole Foods is getting out of the deal?

Although I couldn’t help but notice the Chicago Sun-Times story Thursday about the $10 million subsidy city government will provide Whole Foods to help prepare the site for store construction.

Municipal governments routinely offer up such deals to businesses of any size that want to locate within their boundaries. In and of itself, the subsidy isn’t unusual.

But it makes me wonder if the developers who are bringing Whole Foods to the Englewood neighborhood are counting on some sort of political good-will from city officials.

BRING THIS STORE to one of the city’s “food deserts” and help make it look as though the Emanuel Administration is doing something to benefit the inner-city to make it easier for its residents to shop for groceries (believe it or not, they eat too).

In return, it would seem that those developers can now call in a favor or two – perhaps some easier approval for a future project that they will want to build somewhere within Chicago.

So what do I really think about the concept of Whole Foods coming to Englewood? It would be nice if the store can help residents of that South Side neighborhood get access to better food. Maybe it could even help bolster the surrounding neighborhood.

But the political cynic in me can’t help but wonder about that payback. What future project will get greased through the system because of the Whole Foods willingness? And how much of a stinker will that future deal be?

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Will closing boost brand's profile?

The Calumet Meat Co. for decades operated grocery stores that appealed to the African-American portion of Chicago – so much so that the “Moo & Oink” brand is an icon to that third of the city.

But it also means that it was a complete unknown to the rest of Chicago. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some people had never heard of the cartoon cow or pig that were the symbols of the chain of grocery stores on the South Side and in south suburban Hazel Crest.

SO LEARNING THAT it is now official that the Moo & Oink stores drew no interest, and that the only thing that got any bids at public auction was the cow and pig logo, makes me wonder if this is the chance for the company to get a higher profile.

Which would be the most ironic part – in death, it lives on bigger than in life.

Personally, I didn’t really come into contact with the company until I became a reporter-type person. Back when I worked for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, I got to see so many of the city’s neighborhoods that I hadn’t paid much attention to previously.

At first, learning of the Calumet Meat Co. stores being the “Home of Moo & Oink” just sounded cute. Although it became apparent that this company had survived for as long as it did because it was one of the few companies willing to do business in the black-oriented neighborhoods of Chicago.

OTHER SUPERMARKETS SEEMED determined then (and still do now) to stay out of those areas of the city. There are times when I think the most common sights one can find in a South Side neighborhood with a sizable black population is a one-time Jewish temple that now houses a Baptist congregation AND a one-time Jewel supermarket that now sits vacant or has been converted into something like one of those generic “dollar” stores.

But even Moo & Oink stores couldn’t compete in such isolation, which is what caused them to declare bankruptcy earlier this year and for no one to express interest in maintaining them as stores.

Which is why it’s fate is to become a “brand name” owned by the Best Chicago Meat company. That West Side meatpacker will now have the rights to use the cow and pig logo and slap them on some of their own products – which they will then offer up for sale in supermarkets.

Who knows? We may now be able to buy Moo & Oink sausages or chitterlings at the local Jewel (although I suspect more Anglo-oriented supermarkets will try to avoid carrying the brand – or will downplay its placement in their stores). But company officials are saying they’re envisioning creating something along the line of Moo & Oink-brand barbecue sauce and other seasonings.

WHICH IS WHY I wonder if Moo & Oink will get a higher profile now that their logo and brand can be found in places other than their three stores that apparently weren’t drawing enough business to remain open on their own.

There also is the talk by Best Chicago officials of using the Moo & Oink brand in places outside of Chicago – such as Birmingham, Memphis or Atlanta (the latter of which has a fast-growing African-American population).

The brand has the potential to get recognition beyond the South and West sides of Chicago – even though the “old-timers” are going to see the vacant storefronts (I stumbled across the suburban location sitting empty just the other day – a one-time Dominicks’ turned Moo & Oink to become who knows what) and think about what has been lost.

And which most of Chicago never knew we had.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: These two-decade-old television spots (for all their campy value) show a company that understood perfectly who its customers were.