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Why Can't a Black Owned Supermarket Survive in a Liberal Neighborhood ?

By David Tatarowicz
Wednesday, Jul 30 2008, 11:45 AM

 I think it is interesting that Lena's on Capitol has closed its doors.

Before becoming Lena's it was a Jewel Food Store, and as such I shopped there quite a bit. 

 While shopping there, I saw lots of White Folks I knew from the East Side, Shorewood and Riverwest --- and liked the fact that there was a good mix of Black and White shoppers.

After becoming a Lena's, I shopped there a few times, but noticed that the Volume of Shoppers seemed to be going down.  By the time that Lena's decided to close, it seemed that the parking lot never had more than about a third of the cars that were there when it was a Jewel.

For a while I was recovering from a knee injury, and did very little shopping myself.   But once I was better able to get around,  I was shocked at going to Lena's and seeing so few shoppers there, and it seemed, many fewer White Shoppers than Jewel use to attract.

Questions that come to mind are:

 1) Did Lena's change the mix of items it sold significantly enough to affect the demographics of the shoppers.

2) Did the service level remain at least as good as when it was a Jewel.

3) Did White Folks from Riverwest, Shorewood and the East Side abandon it when it was acquired by Black Ownership.

 

WHAT DO  YOU THINK ? 

WHY DID LENA'S FAIL IN ONE OF THE MOST LIBERAL AREAS OF WISCONSIN ?

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR OPINIONS - COMMENTS - OR QUESTIONS BELOW !
 

Comments

Nancy Peske   

I suspect Lena's went under for the same reason the Jewel/Osco did: competition. Shoppers in the area can choose from a variety of food stores and discount stores, each of which has a niche: Pick 'n' Save, Sendiks, Trader Joe's, Costco, Outpost, Whole Foods...and Wal-Mart, Aldi's, and Big Lots. The Jewel/Lena's building is a huge piece of real estate to work with, and I'm sure their costs were high, yet they didn't offer the advantages of big box stores or humongous discount stores, nor did they offer high quality or hard-to-find gourmet food for people interested in that. They just didn't have a niche that I could see.

July 31, 2008 8:49 AM

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