Star Wars are nothing compared to the Local Store Wars that have woven their way back into the Hudson Hill retail scene, tilting the landscape several blocks to the west, and not just because we’re heading back toward the river.
Another Minnesota as well stalwart, Festival Foods, has been built, complete with on-sale-only liquor, as we like Zep look to the west, and enters the fray, jumping in on opening day like a baseball game with a completely full lot, to a car, and loads of people in each and every line. County Market now finds itself needing to readjust their market position.
Family Fresh grocery was here but then it’s gone, a few years back, and now the big building across the parking lot from the Target has as occupant another retailer, or two or three, and the monopolizing effect meant that County Market, across the freeway, could jack up their prices. At least a little. That was pre-pandemic.
No more, of such stickering. So stop snickering. Festival Foods has moved in where a torn-down big motel had been, a rebuild that added at least and at last a second full-fledged grocer to the Hudson scene. Walmart, not the super kind like in New Richmond, does not count as full-fledged. And the new grocer constructed their store in a place with not much else next door.
— The newest decorating craze finds drivers pasting strings of Christmas lights onto sides mostly, but also hoods and roofs of their car or truck, and in that case payload too. The first one I saw in Hudson ran down the main drag with hundreds, including five orange ones — an odd line and color choice — across the very top of his thick visors. Some strings also spread from the high up cab across to the rear gate.
Outside the Smilin’ Moose, the painted truck passed between two different party buses, parked on either side of the street, thus taking up two of the four lanes.
Outside Hop N Barrel I saw, between parked cars, a man with a yellow construction-type jersey between a group of people, Was he in security, maybe even a designated driver — nope, he was gathering up gift boxes to be wrapped there as part of a community project. —
Within a month before Festival Foods opened, the County Market dropped prices, cents off each dollar spent there — get limit-four canned veggies for 49 cents — and brought back more frequently some old faves in its couponing, which is quite different in signature style and information delivery method from its competitor, which is often more detailed. There also are stark differences in their other retail services offered, with each store having many. (See the end of this post.) So let the Store Wars begin. And the consumer advantage is now. At both current stores.
But first I have to give County Market some love.
In early fall, I had to leave town in a hurry for a family matter, and the a.m. bus would be here soon. But the really cool coupons, mailed to me and everyone in the Hudson area so there is only one copy for each, expired later that day. So an early morning rush to County Market.
I thought I had it nailed. If I use the five-bucks-off-50-coupon once, then take the second one I found lying face-down in the parking lot, thus circle around and go to a different aisle with a different clerk …
Damn, the store was quite quiet and there was only one cashier, mainly, encouraging self-checkout. But I wasn’t confident enough for such with my use of couponing … Plan thwarted.
But still had a few minutes, though my driver was getting bored with YouTube. I thought I’d go, discreetly, to the self-checkout farthest from the main cashier area. Got most of the goods through, but then a problem, and I blame it on myself. Seconds clicking away. Turned out I coulda used an hour.
Darn if that lone clerk didn’t come over to help. She was very nice, fixed the main woe and even ran through my second dollars-off coupon without me even prompting her, and didn’t give me any quip or guilt trip, much less any lip. But she did say one of the items I was trying to bag had not been scanned, even though I thought it was, and there was no time to quibble. So I gave back my Chex mix and tried to run. Literally, in more than one way.
Now I had to lug my second batch of groceries, in addition to the first one I had stowed just outside the door. I hadn’t been bold enough to put it behind one of the bushes being sold just feet away. Meanwhile, the driver is strumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Items fell from my arms. Pick them up, only have them drop again. And then the clerk asks to help! Exposed a second time.
Bottom line, after all was said and done, I was out two bags of Chex mix I could have eaten on the bus. And I want to make it clear this is all my fault, not the stores. But when back in town I did call to see if I could get my mix back.
Both the next clerk and earlier, the woman on the phone, were also more than helpful, and I quickly got my free one(s) — and even at its own on-special two-for-five-dollars. They said all through the process that they’d do whatever they could to help, and trust, a frequent customer, as I was called without question. How did they know?
But coming into play might be that they now had competition. And on opening night at Festival Foods, there was nary a space left in their big parking lot. Even width-wise of the store, that’s impressive.
The lines were there, long and in waiting, by the dozens for that set of cashiers to check off on the newfound food or even beer special. About seven aisles were open — and that doesn’t count the liquor store section and its tiny-plastic-shot-glass specials to sample if you were of age after coming in through its own door — and they needed all of them. There were as many as 50 with their carts backed up into the aisles.
And hands were on duty, and the guy giving out their gas-off-via-partnership-with-Kwik Trip explained things well, on the fly. The next one over gave away two different kinds of wraps, creative in their use of ingredients and bountiful with the meat in this huge store. They even had hot dogs available. Brats too, so super cool.
There were photo opps too. I got a chuckle out of the mom, with dad standing in the background, who took the non-selfie pic of her smiling little one, (like a small moose), behind the wheel of the little cart like a small car, positioned out in front of the store, parked there for at least the day or weekend as a snapshot for what there was.
Much bigger, large truck size, was the vehicle that sat out there a bit to the east, and that payload could have hauled over to the big bins and filled most of the produce department, well at least the organic section.
A driver, though, said that in two weeks, she’d only dropped off two people to shop there, despite noticing the store’s early weekend-opening traffic.
Even though the Local Store Wars have brought down prices all around, we still are seeing overall higher prices for various reasons that include price gouging by Big Corp — see my take on why coming soon — the holiday meals may still cost you, originating way back from the place it’s grown.
There was a time not too many years ago when you could get a pre-made-meal-just-maybe-warm-it-up, for a few people or more and including meat and most all the fixins, for $40. Now it will cost you, and I refer again to County Market and still a good deal, comparison-wise, at between $80 and $200. (All these figures have you save a cent, as a tip?) As a counterpoint, Festival Foods in their very-much-different-styled flyer does not actually list the main prices for their catering, and party tray, but there is the feed-a-bunch bag of pre-made BBQ ribs, killer homestyle St. Louis style, and also pristine chicken breasts, for $2 a pound. OK, again, you actually save a cent on that off each pound. Like the several couponed Festival Foods specials for just 99 cents.
But back to the here and now, going forward. County Market hawks its daily sushi, while Festival Foods its many kinds of seafood as sorry, a sea that’s very diverse, said the best in Wisconsin. There’s a Caribou Coffee at both of the locations, so apparently there’s no exclusivity agreement — unlike the evident persistance in some stores of say, beef over fowl — and the coffee shop has any number of creative and killer drink specials right now for the season. With County Market the only real game in town for a number of years, it was the one-stop place to go for scrubbing things like dry cleaning pickup and Rug Doctor rental. It also led the way in faxing, laminating and the presence of a legitimate cafe next to the coffee shop. Festival Foods offers that at its liquor store, in many cases it has the lowest legal prices, and online they can even help you pre-set your shopping list. Both the places don’t do a very good job on informing the customer of most of these options in their weekly mailings, even though there are many, although Festival Foods initially offered a rundown.
I just got, locally, a County Market gift card. The store said that it was also available in Minnesota at North Branch. It did not list central Wisconsin in the name of Wausau. Small world.
So take advantage of all of these different details, in both places, while in Hudson. If you can, depending where you are.
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