I spent the weekend with my sister and one of the recurring themes in our conversation was our irritation with the increasing blandness of culture in general. One topic visited was businesses.
Back in the early '90s my sister, a pharmacist who couldn’t stand the chain store she worked for, bought her own shop, a pharmacy that had been in business since the 1920s but whose glory days had long past. This was in a small city (about 10,000 people) that already had most of the major chain pharmacies and a couple of independents, so she was told “you’re going to lose your shirt” and had to do some creative financing.
The pharmacy she bought was your typical bland small town drugstore. The pharmacy she wanted was the one from the Jazz Age/Depression Era/World War II pictures of the place with an ice cream & soda fountain/oak fixtures/old signs/etc., and again she was told she was an idiot for spending her savings to buy the wooden cabinets of a condemned pharmacy in Mississippi/a 1950s ice cream fountain from a small town in Georgia/a player piano and vintage jukebox from various auctions etc., but she did. Soon it pretty much was a 1920s small town pharmacy (minus the “whites only” signs and plus Viagra and other modern drugs) with the soda fountain up front where her husband and employees in paper hats/aprons would fix shakes/sodas/malts/Tin Lizzies/Lime Rickeys and every other ice cream drink you’ve ever heard of, all for cheaper than you could get milkshakes at any restaurant in town and many times better, the play piano and jukebox (took nickels) going, a model train that ran through the place, model airplanes that flew on wires upon occasion, artwork made by local artistans for sale on consignment, etc… For those who’ve read some posts about my family you know that it quickly- almost immediately- became an institution where you could rarely find a seat at one of the ice cream parlor tables, got write-ups in USA Today/NYT/various travel magazines/Canadian & Brit & German newspapers/etc… The soda fountain alone was literally a money-maker in its own right from day one and brought people into the store in droves, while there anyway they’d get their prescriptions filled (or they could have them delivered in the store’s Model T) and over the next decade she made enough money from what she took in, what she was able to invest in the then booming real estate market where she lives (she got out before the bubble burst) and from the sale of the store that she owns several homes and, barring a major depression or other catastrophe she doesn’t ever have to work again. Meanwhile one of the independents and one of the chainstores in town went under.
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Okay, point of mentioning this isn’t to brag (I didn’t have anything to do with her drugstore) but to point out that people definitely will patronize atmosphere. Now with pharmaceuticals it’s a bit different than other businesses perhaps: a $25 co-pay is a $25 whether at my sister’s store or at Wal-Mart so there was no real price incentive to go elsewhere.
OTOH, I lament the loss of all the independent bookstores that were here when I moved to town. When I moved here there were several: one was a kind of mom-n-pop bookstore on the corner, some were new-used combo, one was the “Victorian sofa with doilies and espresso machine and stuffed owl [back before those were more ubiquitous than pay phones]” atmospheric bookstore with a major geek (not used as a pejorative) and or gaming club patronage. Today there’s one independent (in a not very convenient location) that sells new books and one used paperback place, along with 2 Books’a’Millions and a Barnes & Noble (that’s in a TERRIBLE location- it’s dead most days- no idea why they don’t move).
Anyway, while my business certainly isn’t enough to keep a place in business, I’d definitely be willing to pay cover price for a cool local bookstore than save 10% at BaM. (I can’t in all honestly say I’d pay $25 for a bestseller at an indie bookstore if the same one was $15 after discounts with card at BaM, but I rarely buy bestsellers.) The staff at BaM is rarely helpful, knowledgable, or even particularly courteous, and half the time if I see a book I want there and I’m not going to start reading it immediately I order it online where it’s a few dollars cheaper even with s&h anyway. In short, no bookstore has my loyalty, the BaMs are just a convenience where I can hold books rather than digitally browse them.
The only independent places left in Montgomery (metro pop about 300,000) that have any real atmosphere are some restaurants, most of them in older buildings. There may be a few upscale clothing stores still around (I haven’t bought upscale clothing in forever so I’m not sure) but everything else is chains chains bloody chains, or in the few businesses that are privately owned they’re usually as personality free as the chains without the conveniences.
So now the only businesses I patronize because I like the friendly employees or the unique atmosphere are a few restaurants. No bookstores/no hardware stores/no pharmacies/etc… (I blame much on the fact that Montgomery is impossible to get around without a car and the most architecturally interesting part of the city- the only part that has real character- is the downtown, where 19 out of 20 buildings close by 5:30 p.m. and the only people who live there are the city’s few but extant homeless.)
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A contrast: I lived in two towns in Georgia, each a college town with a population of around 20,000- and both had thriving downtowns and several cool indie shops and restaurants. My sister’s store was, again, in a town of about 10,000. Perhaps it’s only in small places where you can succeed against chains anymore.
So how about in your town- are there independent businesses you patronize? Or, for that matter, any chain stores you patronize because the people are friendly or give great service? Would you be likely to pay slightly more (say 10-15%) for the “community owned/personal touch”?
