Grocery Life November 11, 2014

Posted on November 11, 2014 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life November 11, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. Today is Veterans Day. We should all be thankful for their service to our country. We have certainly benefited from their service. I know I tend to take my freedoms for granted and should be more appreciative of the sacrifices others have made for me. It takes a special person to serve and they certainly deserve to be honored today as well as every day.

Rocky Hill continues to be a growing, vibrant community. The planning for the Christmas parade on December 6th is really going well. You will probably start seeing posters advertising the parade. We have them in our entry ways. The committee still needs volunteers to help with the parade and there are also opportunities to be a sponsor of the parade. You can find out more information on the parade website.

We have a new restaurant in the shopping center. It is called Ichiban Asian Bistro. It is located three doors up from us in the old echelon florist location. Ashley and I walked up there the other night to check it out and it is really nice. We ended up ordering about five kinds of sushi that was really good. I have noticed the employees are getting lunch there and they all say it has been good at a good price. I think you will be impressed with the job they have done with the space so you may want to give it a try.

I also paid the new REI outdoor store a visit last week. It is located on Papermill Drive. I had never been in one of their stores but was told how great they are. When I heard they were coming to town, I was worried about how all of our great local outdoor stores would compete. After visiting REI, I am not as worried. It is a nice store and bigger than the local ones but they didn’t seem to offer anything better than what the local stores have so I am going to keep it local.

In the same shopping center as REI, Whole Foods is building a store. Just what we needed, another grocery store.

Whole Foods is a national company that sells high-end organic groceries. They have already started to advertise locally in anticipation of their opening which I think is in January. The commercials I have seen are about how special their beef is. A lot of their beef is produced by southern natural foods which is a Tennessee company. We have been carrying their beef and pork products for the last couple of years. Maybe they will add our name to their commercials?

I was talking to another one of our local vendors Friday. She is in the process of trying to get her products in Whole Foods. She has spent several months being interviewed and filling out paperwork to get her products approved by them. She has finally jumped through enough hoops to make it to the Whole Foods Global level, whatever that means. She and I have a handshake deal for her to sell her products in our store. My “global level” has about a fifty mile radius. I guess that’s why they are a multi-billion dollar company and I have one neighborhood grocery store.

I hope she ends up getting her products in their stores. It will be a great opportunity for her and she will have certainly earned it.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. We are already stocking up on all of the holiday items.

The meat department will have fresh as well as frozen whole turkeys and breast. They will have both free-range fresh turkeys and Butterball fresh turkeys. If you are interested in a fresh turkey I would go ahead and reserve one, supplies will be limited on those. Just give us a call to order one.

Our beef tenderloin price through Thanksgiving will be 13.99 a pound. I hate to even type that price. I was hoping to sell them cheaper than this for Thanksgiving but the cost jumped another sixty-five cents this week. I am not very optimistic about Christmas pricing so now may be a good time to get one.

The bakery/deli is starting to prepare some of their holiday dishes. They will have stuffing and casseroles available through the holidays. A new item they are making is bread pudding. It has already become a favorite for those that have tried it.

You can sample these things as well as a lot of other holiday foods at our Holiday Open House on November 22nd from 11:00 to 2:00.