A tangent: I was just going to post about the weirdness of Farm Boy. But I got sidetracked by some interesting stuff on the Web: Apparently Farm Boy is a small chain of at least two grocery stores, and its business strategy is to be near Trader Joe's. There is also a Farm Boy in Sherman Oaks also in close proximity to a TJ's.
This seems a good strategy, because the clientele that Farm Boy attracts is similar to TJ's - foodies, yuppies, well-to-do family people - and these customers are likely to be ripe (sorry) for another place to buy produce, TJ's produce section being limited to mostly prepackaged stuff. i.e. It's good for if you want a whole bag of onions, but bad for if you want just one onion.)
Now, on to what I wanted to say:
I like Farm Boy because of its focus on fruits and vegetables. The product is cheaper and better than in mainstream supermarkets, where produce is usually overpriced, impossibly big and beautiful, and inevitably tasteless. But since Farm Boy's produce is more "real," it means you have to be somewhat vigilant and choosy.
Farm Boy has become an after-work routine, a place on my way home where I stop to pick up some staples like tomatoes or avocados. If I'm famished, I splurge on one of the more pricey non-produce item that Farm Boy carries: Cheese, dried fruit, gummy candy, or some house-made Korean snack like veggie pancakes.
That is the fun part.
But when it's time to check out, some sort of subtly unpleasant exchange always manages to bring me down.
If the owner-husband is at the cash register, he rings me up so quickly - magician-like, almost - that I can't tell what he has charged for individual items, and my total always comes out higher than expected. One time, as a result of a misleadingly priced piece of cheese, I asked for a receipt. A little taken aback, he printed one out and gave it to me. During my next visit, I think he remembered me: My couple of dollars in change he basically chucked on the counter for me to pick up.
Today, I got the wife. She's nicer, though in an overly polite sort of way. When she was about to ring up some blackberries, I made sure to point out I had gotten them from the stand outside the front door, where they were priced at $0.99. Inside, in the refrigerated section, they were $1.99. She said, "Ok! 99 cents!" and rang them up. Then she looked at a little nub of ginger I had, which I had twisted off one of the two giant ginger roots available for sale (because I just wanted a little ginger, and those roots had been really big). She frowned a little, almost imperceptibly. Rang it up for $0.25.
I left feeling like I had finally shopped at Farm Boy without being taken for a ride. But then I got home and opened the blackberries. Some had a white fuzz on them already, and the ones that looked okay were already past the point of sweet. As in, too ripe and not sweet anymore, though not yet rotten.
Farm Boy: 1 point (for selling me sucky blackberries)
Laura: 1 point (1/2 point for the ginger nub and 1/2 point for avoiding getting charged $1.99 for sucky blackberries)
* Does this post make me sound like a really cheap person? If so, God forgive me. But the owners are Asian too, so they should understand. They would do the same if they were shopping there.
Photo courtesy of www.laist.com
