ann arbor is overrated.

Sad Day for the OWS

Jefferson Market is up for sale. Where are we going to get our boutique-retro cleaning products and educational toys now?

30 Responses to “Sad Day for the OWS”

…and our expensive sandwiches - don’t forget the expensive sandwiches.

Oh. Right. We’ll get them at Zingerman’s. Silly me!
posted by David on May 24th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
AAiO, rest assured, until Acme Mercantile goes under all your boutique-retro cleaning product and educational toy shopping needs can still be met in AA.
posted by Nick on May 24th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Hey, anyone who can make onion rings like they do is okay by me. They can sell whatever twee junk they want.
posted by Chris on May 25th, 2006 at 9:39 am
…I like the twee, too.
posted by Nitro on May 25th, 2006 at 10:57 am
I lived two blocks from that place for a year and never went in. No marshmallows for me is a deal-breaker!
posted by Dave on May 25th, 2006 at 11:10 am
I didn’t know that place had twee. I’d go there more often.
posted by Brandon on May 25th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
“don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what it’s got til it’s gone…”
posted by OFWinsurgent on May 25th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
A parking lot would be a big improvement.
posted by Michael McC. on May 26th, 2006 at 7:44 am
dude, that’s cold.
posted by OFWinsurgent on May 26th, 2006 at 10:57 am
well, it’s not like it was paradise, or something…
posted by Daniel on May 26th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
They should replace it with a McDonalds. Killer location next to a school.
posted by George on May 27th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Grumpy Monkey coffee is one of the best ways to spend two dollars before nine in the morning.
posted by Wilk on May 30th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
This blog is enough to make a skeptic an Ann-Arbour-booster. I’ve rolled my eyes at Jeff Mkt plenty of times (”that’s where yuppies go to heaven”)–but, dude, you want every last original, owner-operated, hand-cooked local place replaced by McD’s Taco Bell parking lots and NUTTIN move to … almost anywhere else.

Is Ann Arbor underrated???
posted by buzz on May 31st, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Big City Small World Bakery is better anyway, plus it’s run by hippies not yuppies…a subtle yet all important distinction. The three yuppie-centric locally-owned places I generally avoid in A2 are, in order, Zingermans, Jefferson Market, and the Washtenaw Dairy. One down, two to go.
posted by Anonymous on June 10th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
I love Jefferson Market. There should be more of them in other Ann Arbor neighborhoods.
posted by Kate on June 20th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Especially neighborhoods with more money than brains. Oh wait, you’re right, there’s lots.
posted by Michael McC. on June 20th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Wait a minute- the people who OWN the Dairy are definitely not yuppies, and Scott (BCSW) is definitely not, by a long shot, a hippie. (As for the staff, when was leopard spotted crewcuts on women ever a hippie thing?).

Is there some kind of falsified “A2 hipster values” blacklist thing making the internet rounds or something?
posted by stella on June 20th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
No, just a bunch of crabby and bitter imbeciles without the capacity to appreciate the finer things in life!
posted by CMS on June 20th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Stella, punks are hippies now. Did you miss the memo on that?

Hipsters are what we used to call poseurs: It’s the guy you don’t know who dresses just like you do. How dare he?

The Dairy gets a fair amount of traffic in the afternoons from what appear to be yuppies, but if you go there at 6AM you see the crowd that can be found later in the day at Knight’s Restaurant. Donuts and Ice Cream really don’t play so well to the baguette and gelato crowd.

Must you people (not all of you people) go out of your way to find fault with locally-owned establishments? You’re perfectly welcome to hang out all day at lousy processed-food hellholes any number of stinky stripmalls for 3000 miles in every direction.
posted by Nitro on June 21st, 2006 at 7:25 am
The capacity to misunderstand subtlety knows no bounds.

The problem with JM is not that it exists, but rather that there are so few such options in Ann Arbor that JM, despite the fact that the store would be a dime a dozen in any city Ann Arbor compares itself to, is lauded as one of the best store/eateries in the whole city. If we opened up the downtown and near-downtown to anything approaching reasonable development (amount and type), we would see innumerable interesting businesses opening up. We don’t and we don’t, so we’ve got Jefferson Market and Zingerman’s and Washtenaw Dairy.
posted by Dale on June 21st, 2006 at 9:55 am
but the question remains - why is The Dairy even mentioned in a sentence like that, alongside Zingermans and Jeff Mkt.
I can’t see any relationship in business plans, products, services, staff, etc.

The Dairy -you walk in and buy some bread, milk, beer, icecream or donuts. Thats pretty much it. Very, very similar to the Millers Ice Cream store I was in, in some little corner of Mt. Clemens yesterday,
Obviously family run and some high school kids making scoops. Whats so offensive about that?
Other than sure, I’d like to have more of them in more neighborhoods.
Which is not necessarily a planning issue, but more likely the cost of being a small distributership when competing with the grocery giants for vendor services.
posted by stella on June 21st, 2006 at 10:17 am
Rent. It comes down to real estate. The only reason the Dairy survives is that they own their building.
posted by Dale on June 21st, 2006 at 10:20 am
Well, what Zingerman’s, Jefferson Market, and Washtenaw Dairy DO have in common is that they are all members of Think Local First, the local nonprofit that encourages support of locally-owned businesses. (Full disclosure - I started the nonprofit).

However, thinking of Washtenaw Dairy as even remotely yuppie made me laugh. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘old-school’.
posted by Lisa on June 21st, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Oh, and a quick random piece of info. When Jean and Matt from Jefferson Market moved back to the area, they were looking at real estate downtown for a restaurant, but couldn’t afford it. They sort of ‘grew-into’ the Jefferson Market location by adding things that their neighbors would find useful, like the small selection of groceries and some kid’s toys. As some of you have identified, she loves good food, and some of it no doubt is food that is probably more appealing to the yuppie crowd. I would LOVE a store like that in my area so that I could walk down and get butter, a can of tomatos, or a quick dinner, without driving. (Even if the food didn’t appeal to my particular tastes.) We definitely definitely need some zoning changes so that this can happen more…
posted by Lisa on June 21st, 2006 at 2:59 pm
…It’s perfectly legitiate to criticise any business you like, but lumping the Washtenaw Dairy with the other two seems arbitrary and dim.

But what I want to know is, are those “Tear it down and build a McDonalds/Walmart/Taco Bell” posts even real, or is it just some kind of automatic response fired randomly from AAIO, triggered by the mention of local businesses? They’re tedious. Oh, and they lack subtlety.

I don’t think development is always good. I knew this guy once, and he developed a tumor.
posted by Nitro on June 22nd, 2006 at 8:49 am
Well I just don’t think the issue is necessarily rent. 30 years ago (when rent, especially in this neighborhood, was relatively cheap) There were 5 corner stores, at least 4 of which, I’m pretty sure, owned their buildings. 10 years ago there were 2, both of which, I know for a fact own their buildings.
Once Nick’s was gone, the one remaining survivor, is Knights Market. It survives because it has a specialty which caters to a niche market. That keeps the customer flow steady. The same as The Dairy. Once the customers are in, they buy more other stuff.
BUT
Having worked in small groceries, I can tell you that vendors are more apt to blow off their deliveries to the small stores if there’s any issues of time or an outstanding bill or myriad other problems. This leads to empty shelf syndrome which sends the customer back to the big store and starts a downward spiral. The other thing I know is that for the small grocer, unless you jack them way up, grocery sales DO NOT pay the bills at all, regardless of renting or owned.
The niche pays the bills. And when you’re dealing with a town like A2, it had better either appeal to the upscale or be alcohol.
posted by stella on June 22nd, 2006 at 10:08 am
More neighborhood booze shops? Ok, sounds good!
posted by Dave on June 22nd, 2006 at 10:21 am
Wait, Stella — tell me how the Dairy could afford to pay $20/square foot at their location and stay in business (in their current form).

I’m visualizing a spreadsheet with two columns: Revenue and Expense. Expense numbers would include a big number for rent and Revenue would be modest numbers except for ice cream 3 months a year. While there are numerous reasons that Revenue numbers might get bigger or smaller, they have to exceed the Expense numbers. With rent as a proxy for real estate costs (we could have the same discussion regarding bank loans for recent purchase), this is the key. Where am I wrong?
posted by Dale on June 22nd, 2006 at 11:00 am
that is sad. i loved the jefferson market, even if it was super expensive….somethings are worth it. nice people. nice atmosphere. anybody know what they are doing with the building…live music would be nice.
posted by Marc on November 26th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
There will never be a mcdondals in the jefferson market and if there is i am going yo protest!!
posted by Unknown on January 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Sad Day for the OWS

30 Responses to “Sad Day for the OWS”

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