Stocking Fun in Food Aisles; Stores Put; a Premium on Fun As They Shop for Customers

By KATHY FLANIGAN

Don Ellingsen can’t believe the scenario, and he’s the instigator: A handful of guys from work eat lunch and talk about don’t say politics grocery shopping.

The topic is almost always Metro Market, 1123 N. Van Buren St.

“Four of us guys sitting there, and we’re talking about it,” said Ellingsen, 52, owner of Ellingsen Brady Advertising. “You can go from the Packers to grocery shopping.”

“I stopped at the market last night,” Ellingsen said.

He’s probably there three or four times each week.

For Ellingsen, it’s not so much shopping as it is an experience.

The store has a keyboard player. There’s a caf. There’s a flat- screen television. He can grab a meal to go.

He might say hello to Jamie Miller, Metro Market’s “foodie” the go-to guy for questions on how to cook an unusual vegetable or seafood item.

Miller has seen groups of 10 and 15 people meet at the market before they went over to Jazz in the Park in nearby Cathedral Square.

“Markets and grocery stores have become kind of the hot topic,” Ellingsen said. The Milwaukee area is swimming in markets that offer fun in the produce aisles, adventure in the seafood selection and enough cheese/papaya/fill-in-the-blank samples to fill an empty stomach.

Gabbing about groceries

It’s hard to say when grocery shopping began making tongues wag and hearts race.

West side residents have been whispering about rumors that Roundy’s would turn an aging Pick ‘N Save on W. State St. into a Metro Market, giving a two-block area of Wauwatosa three upscale grocery stores.

Roundy’s plans to remodel the store at 6950 W. State St. and give it elements of Metro Market, but it won’t carry that name, spokeswoman Vivian King said.

She did promise the remodeled store would be “Metro Market- esque.”

That probably means no piano. Probably no flat-screen TV, either.

Maybe they won’t spend as much time obsessing on just the right shade of mustard yellow for the produce section as they did for the downtown store.

Although, with Outpost Natural Foods Cooperative across the street at 7000 W. State St., expect a strong selection of organic produce just maybe not on shelves specifically curved to announce the difference.

Also in the mix of upscale grocery experiences in the neighborhood is the Sentry Food Store at 6700 W. State St.

Brookfield was the area’s first bastion of grocery-store pampering home to Grasch Foods, V. Richards and Brennan’s Country Farm Market, all of which sell swanky foods and wines.

Sendik’s, in all its area stores under various ownership, has always offered shoppers a taste of life outside the big-box stores with touches like natural lighting or selections that go beyond the norm. For instance, the Brookfield Sendik’s has a walk-in cheese display with 400 varieties.

If it’s stimulus you want with your shopping experience, step into any El Rey location on a Saturday night.

That’s when families congregate under the ceiling of colorful piatas loading up their carts for the week. Following the rule-of- thumb that one should never shop hungry, there’s a caf inside and food carts outside. Or hang out on the battered sofa near the deli at Koppa’s Farwell Foods, 1940 N. Farwell Ave., and watch the neighborhood go by.

What’s not to love?

Making food shopping fun

Not so long ago, grocery shopping was all about a lack of frills and personality.

Store designs favored a warehouse look. Fluorescent overhead lights, deep freezers and the occasional meat sample on a pretzel were as fancy as an afternoon of shopping might get.

It wasn’t the happy hour experience it is now.

“There have been studies that people hate grocery shopping. I think stores have been responsive to how can we make it more fun,” said Lisa Marowski, director of brand and store development for Outpost, which just opened a third store in Bay View with its largest caf yet.

“It’s like any other business; there are a lot of options for people to buy food,” she said. “We’re not just in competition with other grocery stores, we’re in competition with quick marts and with restaurants like Noodles (& Co.). You need to make the time worthwhile that they spend in your store.”

Hence the catering to a shopper’s every need with the occasional wine tasting or expensive cheese sample. And the in-store caf.

While Wal-Mart gobbles up grocery business in outlying areas of Wisconsin, urban areas have “gotten an expansion in upscale formats,” said David Livingston, a supermarket consultant and owner of DJL Research in Pewaukee.

Stores that don’t change don’t last, Livingston said. Take, for instance, the now-defunct Kohl’s on Van Buren St. that faded where Metro Market is flourishing.

“Basically, it was an old Kohl’s catering to Laverne and Shirley’s mother,” he said. “Kohl’s marketed that store like it would have a Kohl’s anywhere.” Boring.

Roundy’s set its sights on young urban types and empty nesters buying condos downtown and zeroed in with convenience foods and convenience services. There are several places to check out in the store and a pay-by-touch system allows them to use a credit card without hassle.

“This is a very social place,” said Metro Market’s Miller, who has gotten to know a lot of shoppers by name.

Miller, 26, is the guy you go to when you want to know what to do with a certain produce or how to cook seafood.

He came to Metro Market from Austin, Texas, home of Whole Foods, a natural foods store that has helped turn the industry on its ear with its organic selection, fresh foods and specialized items.

Whole Foods is bringing a store to the east side next year, after testing the waters in Madison.

Other Whole Foods stores in the chain have been known for their celebrity shoppers most recently, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin checking out the veggies at a Whole Foods in Atlanta.

More of a community’

Several stores Outpost, Metro Market and V. Richards among them have caf seating. The G. Groppi Food Market has an outdoor patio.

“As a small retailer, you really have to take a look at things,” said John Nehring, who owns the Groppi market with his wife, Anne Finch-Nehring.

The couple also own V. Richards and Sendik’s on Oakland in Shorewood, and have plans to build a new store in Brewers Hill.

“We can’t compete with mass merchandising, big buys and pricing,” he said. “We need to make it feel like more of a community, an event instead of drudgery.”

As a result, the store buzzes in the morning with customers grabbing a cup of coffee and a scone and sharing the morning news outside on the patio (weather permitting).

The inventory is way beyond the corner-store look of the place. See if you can get past the display case of luscious baked goods to find the deli and meats piled high. Listen while they make you a sandwich and then grab a wine or a beer to go with it.

A similar sense of community, that sense that you’ll run into old friends, is part and parcel of Lena’s Food Markets. That’s intentional.

“We look at the store as a meeting place,” said co-owner Gregory Martin. “That’s one of our slogans. We used it in some of our advertising. It’s a meeting place. It’s not uncommon to see people meet family members in the stores or lost friends. You can hear it in the aisles.”

Indeed you can. At the newest Lena’s at W. Capitol Drive and N. Teutonia Ave., shoppers greet each other with hugs and waves.

And that’s on a weekday afternoon. Visit on a Sunday, the busiest shopping day, to see a real reunion, Martin said.

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