Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1978)
Time, money, convenience and quality are all things to consider when buying food. Considering them may mean big is not necessarily better when you go . . . Shoppin’ Story by MELODY WARD Photos by Greg Gawlowski As the cost of eating gets higher and higher, a person might as well have a good time grocery shopping. If your idea of a good time doesn t quite match up with the reality of spending large amounts of time waiting in line at chain stores, read on. Just because a chain grocery store covers most of a city block (all of one if you count the parking lot) doesn't mean it’s the place to get the most out of your food budget. Eugene abounds with warm, personable, competitively-priced shops that emphasize high quality merchandise. In fact, the person who is willing to expend minimum extra energy may be able to save a considerable sum of money by seek ing these places out. And any additional transport time spent getting to them will probably be more enjoyabie than waiting in line at a convenience store. A sample shopping list for area specialty stores might include fresh local vegetables, fresh-caught seafood, fresh bagels, organic pastas, fine wines, and classic desserts such as Viennese tortes. You may have caught the emphasis on “fresh.” This emphasis on quality is also in all the following stores, which are representative of several more in Eugene. Six stores in the campus area fall into the "neigh borhood natural food store” category. The Willamette Valley People’s Co-Op Grocery (343-6694) is located at 22nd Avenue and Emerald across from Edison Elementary School. Formed in 1969, it was the first store of its kind to provide wholesome food at the lowest possible cost in this area. Though it is a co-op, there is no mem bership requirement for shopping at the store. Peo ple who do work receive $1 credit for each hour worked toward grocery purchases. Bulk grains, flours, herbs, pasta; fresh eggs and vegetables, await the co-op shopper. New this summer: watermelon juice from Genesis. Over at 24th and Hilyard, a cluster of stores will delight and reward anyone who chooses to forage among them. Sundance (343-9142) has a very good selec tion of dried foods, ranging from carob chips to dried Hawaiian pineapple and spinach (real spinach) lasagne. Every conceivable size and shape of pasta is available, along with grains and legumes too numerous to list. Sundance also stocks imported beers, raw milk (including goat milk) rennetless cheeses and honey yoghurt, as well as a good supply of imported beers and local wines. Just Produce (343-5393) occupies the same ' ^ s «■ . t»» -S J: - «*£ &?S: baskets often replace carts in alternative grocery stores. At right August Baynach prepares Danish pastries in Metropol Bakery at the Fifth Street Public Market. i" a/-, \ l 1 g|pp^ |ggg pjfe i |jjL Vft l ' ■ ■■■ isw* =«•■{«■'• mil ■ rf. P ,.„.mm building as Sundance, and ives up to more than its name implies. Compact, It e store is rather like a minature indoor version ol a French open-air mar ket. The produce is almost; Iways in superior condi tion, with prices running 1) cents or more below neighboring retail chains. The managers make every attempt to insure tof quality vegetables and fruits. Fountain of Juice (343> 1713) is the source of an entire wall of creative, ins) ired liquid concoctions. You haven’t really lived ui il you've tasted freshly squeezed juices like thosd available here. Humble Bagel Co. (484 1142) is just around the corner from Sundance. Se eral varieties of bagels, and salt stix, are available esh at least three times daily. Challah is baked on Fridays. Lox, cream cheese and other bagel fixings are sold at the bakery, and the amiable owners provide customers with free spoon;. A sidelight — the best New York cheesecake thin side of the Big Apple, sliced up and ready for arj impromptu picnic. Bagels cost 15 cents eadh, with frozen six-packs available for 60 cents. Ypu'll find these bagels elsewhere, but not at the bakery price. Harbor Seafoods (686-91 92) moved into an abandoned gas station on the comer of 24th and Hilyard recently, making the vegetarian’s shopping needs completely attainable at this location. Who can describe the odor of a fish store? Awful, but wait ’til you get your catch home. Salad shrimp and crab (ready to eat), prawns, scallops, smoked salmon, fresh whole salmon, cod, sole, lobster tails and more await the seafood lover. Prices may seem high, but compared to other forms of animal protein, there is very little waste — in fact, per serving, fish is quite competitively priced. Most seafoods are fresh from the Oregon coast; some special things like lobster tails are flown in from elsewhere. It's worth crossing town just to see the Metropol Bakery (687-9370) in the Fifth Street Public Mar ket. Even if almost every pastry they make is not on your diet, watching the bakers at work is good en tertainment. Opened just before Christmas, the bakery is owned by Donna McGuiness and David Counter, who also run a cafe upstairs in the market. The bakery dominates the entire center of the lower level of the market, and like a glass music box, you can watch every stage of creation of the goodies. “A lot of the things that we do are real special,” understates a baker named Jean. “We don’t skimp — we don't use any substitutes.” The European Viennese style bakery specializes in torts, “a super fancy cake” that usually has buttercream icing and fillings." Jean says tortes are more delicate than ordinary cakes and have “a lot more parts to them.” All natural ingredients: fresh butter, cream and chocolates, are used in the baked goods. “We’re high priced because of the quality and because these people believe in paying their help,” Jean says. "We do a lot of time-consuming handwork .... we are not cheap.” But if you like good food, they aren’t that expen sive either. French bread is 95 cents per loaf, other exotic breads cost $1.25. The bakery also pro duces flaky brioche, Cornish pastries, croissants and danish. "It’s unique because everything is on view,” Jean says of Metropol. "We’re here to educate the com munity. A lot of people do not realize what it takes to make good pastry. I love it when people ask ques tions.” The Fifth Street Public Market (5th Avenue and High) also houses three other excellent food stores and a wide variety of special crafts shops that make the grocery shopping journey even more interest ing. Coffee Corner, (343-7230), a small family cor poration owned by Paul and Kathy Leighton, sells 30 coffees either by the bean, or freshly ground. Coffees from every coffee-growing continent in the world arrive at the shop twice weekly. African, Ara bian, and other exotic coffees, and Ghiradelli and Mexican chocolates, are sold in any amount de sired. Though the price is subject to world coffee prices, it ranges from $4.30 to $5.85 per pound. Public Market Produce (342-3011) harks back to an era long past — the friendly neighborhood grocer who bags up your fruits and vegetables while you wait. Produce is delivered to the market fresh daily, and the shop boasts the lowest prices on mushrooms in town: $1.19 per pound. The store is also just starting to stock local or ganic Brownsville mushrooms, and so far they are exclusively available at the Public Market. Northwest Wine and Cheese (343-0536) fea tures offerings from Oregon vineyards and bre weries, and from others around the world. From Henry Weinhard’s private reserves to Hofbrau Bavaria, you’ll find a complete selection of the finer drinks in life. The selection of cheeses would please any gourmet. Storm’s Seafoods (344-1927) boasts the most complete selection of seafood to be found in one store in this state. Fresh fish from the Oregon coast, shrimp, squid and prawns are ready to go. The freezer yields lobster tails from Australia and Brazil, frozen frog legs and Alaskan king crab. Whole sal mon are usually always available, as is smoked salmon, herring and other kinds of fish. No guide to alternative grocery shopping in Eugene would be complete without mentioning The Kiva (342-8666), located at 136 East 11th Ave. Prices are good; the management tries to keep them as low as possible. The Kiva offers extensive Mexican and oriental sections, carries four or five dairy lines, three lines of juices, all kinds of bulk goods, imported coffees, and has a huge cheese case and an herb shop. We Resole Hiking Boots with genuine Vibram and Rebuild Sport Shoes (Adidas, Nikes, Tiger) Decker Sandals We are also the campus outlet for hiking boots and' other fine quality footwear. Ev—r One Stop Shoe Repair rapus Shoe Shop 843 E. 13th 343-6613 Pace 8 Section A Tired of buying food? — Try buying records. By KEVIN HARDEN Of the Emerald They seem to be springing up faster than the golden arches in the suburbs. No one in recent memory knows exactly how many retail record stores there were in Eugene before this year. Some think as many as eight were swapping vinyl at one time several years ago. But those were the days when Eugene was a college town free from the pains of rezoning and downtown economic woes. Today all that has changed. Rearrange the names, change a few of the locations and add four new stores, and Eugene’s record market has apparently reached its peak. The opening of Odyssey on the down town mall may be helping or hindering the record market; it depends on who you talk to. Of the record stores polled, only a couple thought the new stores had cut into their business. Some even refused to talk about the new stores. Although the manager of Chrystalship records would say how many album titles the store carried, that was about all. Chrystalship enjoyed the distinction of being the only record store on the down town mall almost since the mall’s opening nine years ago. The store’s 10-year reign as the only “world class record and tape” store may be challenged by the new mall venture by Odyssey Records. Odyssey records is just one link of a nine-state chain of stores that stretches a cross Arizona, Alaska, Utah, Nevada, California, Washington, Idaho, New Mexico and now Oregon. According to Michelle Errecart, Odyssey manager, all the orders and directions for the Eugene store come from the main office in Santa Cruz, Calif. It’s this office that tells the store how long to continue the present grand opening sale, what advertising vehi cles to use and what prices to set for the records they sell, she says. Why move to a city with already its fair share of record stores? “It’s a growing town,’’ Errecart says. “It’s also a pretty sophisticated town. People here have pretty sophisticated and varied tastes in music. So we just looked around and thought it was a good place to open a store.” The University also played an important part of the company's decision to move here, she says. Odyssey Record stores seem to fit into college towns with ease. The mall store may have been a blessing to the city’s fading downtown district, Ray Mclver, mall manager for the Eugene Downtown Association, says. In terms of some hypothetical dollar value, the move to locate the Odyssey Re cord store in the south section of the mall at 10th Avenue and Willamette Street may have been a $50 million venture, Mclver says. “That area was considered by some of the merchants down there to be dead or dying fast,” he says. Merchants who had occupied stores in that section of the mall for several years were moving to more cen tral locations. But the ventures by Odyssey and the new mini-mall complex in the old J.C. Penney building, Centre Court, have given the mall a needed shot in the economic arm, Mclver says. The stores on the mail's south section are now hot property, leaving realtors and store owners wishing to get into the area to wonder what happened to all the space that was available just a few months before, he says. As for the record market in the downtown area, it may be a consumer’s market for some time to come, Mclver says. “The first reaction to the big sale by the new store was to lower prices.” According to Tim Mortenson, man ager of Everybody’s Records at Fifth Av enue and Willamette Street, the new stores may do more good than harm to the already glutted record market. “I don’t think having Odyssey or Budget records here is going to hurt sales any for our store,” Mortenson says. “They have actually generated sales.” Next month when the Odyssey sale is over, he says, the record buyer in Eugene will have a better selection than before to choose from. “When all the dust settles, so to speak, I think all the people will go back to buying their records at their regular stores. And it will make a difference how you turn a person on to a record. I think we can do a better job than anyone else,” he says. Budget Records and Tapes, in the Shel don Plaza on Coburg Road, may have saved itself a lot of trouble by not locating on the mall downtown. There may even be room for more record stores in Eugene, says Randy Harrison, Budget Records manager. Harrison considers his store, a link in a franchise chain out of Denver, to be more of a neighborhood store, which naturally draws neighborhood customers. But the Odyssey grand opening sale has hurt others’ profits, if only unintentionally. “I don’t think in terms of us and them,” Er recart says. “I’m more interested in getting my own store together right now.”
