I have lived in downtown Cincinnati for nine years.  As soon as people learn where I live, they almost always ask, “Where do you go to get groceries?”

Ask my neighbors, and they will say this is almost always the first question people ask them, too.

Until today.

We city dwellers privately laughed that people asked about our shopping habits.  Nobody ever asked us the hard questions:  Where do you park?  How do you deal with the panhandlers?  What do you think about the gentrification of OTR? Was the streetcar a waste of money? What are you going to do about the @!*# scooters on the sidewalks?

We wondered if folks imagined we were afraid to venture out on the dangerous urban streets to buy our cornflakes and potatoes.

Or maybe suburbanites, intimidated by the one-way streets and multiple Interstate on-ramps in downtown Cincy, imagined it was as difficult to exit the city as it was to enter it.

Maybe they asked because they loved their own neighborhood grocery stores that carry peanut butter and pjs and potting soil, and they couldn’t imagine how bleak our lives would be without that kind of shopping experience.

Rick and I laughed when asked this question partly because we also wondered where we’d get our groceries when we first moved downtown.  We glommed on to every rumor –and there had been many–of a grocery store being built in our neighborhood.

But once we were seasoned urban dwellers, we laughed because it was incredibly easy to get groceries down here, easier in fact than when we lived in the burbs.

There’s Findlay Market, the 167-year-old gem in the heart of OTR, an easy walk for most of us, or a 5-minute streetcar ride if you’d like, where you can find the best butchers and fishmongers and gelato makers.

You can pop over to the Seventh Street CVS which has a substantial food section where I’ve bought cake mix and sour cream and Beck’s beer.

There are dozens of little convenience stores where you can find the essentials like ketchup and lottery tickets.  Maybe not brie or anchovies, but probably a dented can of tuna or creamed corn.

There is Silverglades Deli—ten floors below my apartment– where you can get darned good sandwiches, soups, and quinoa salad, but you can also get milk and juice and cheese.  Once I ran one banana short for the bread I was baking and ran down and bought one (under the circumstances, a bargain at 50 cents) wearing my pajamas under my raincoat.  One night I was making tacos and discovered my lettuce had gone soggy, and they sold me a little handful of Iceberg for a quarter.

And up until today, there was the Vine Street Kroger.  It certainly was nothing like the Kroger we frequented when we lived in Delhi, nor the one in Newport which is now a   7-minute drive away.

The Kroger parking lot on Vine accommodated about 20 cars.  As you walked in,from the parking lot, someone invariably asked for money, but when you said, “No, sorry,” he or she usually wished you a good day.

The security guard greeted you at the front door.  There was a train of, at most, six grocery carts parked inside.  There were usually two checkout lines open (no self-checkout kiosks), and if you shopped there frequently, as I did, you’d get acquainted with the cashier scanning your items.

You could see the entire store with one sweep of your eyes, yet the Vine Street Kroger seemed to have all the essentials:  toilet paper, Italian sausage, Greek yogurt, even cilantro.

If you were a little short on cash, as many patrons seemed to be, you could buy small quantities or coffee, flour, or cornmeal, the kind of packaging you’re not likely to find in the big stores.

Some of my neighbors felt uncomfortable shopping there, and some thought it was too small to accommodate their needs.  And I would have to agree with those who said it was a little grubby.   But for me, it was the ultimate convenience store.

Last week I needed  a can of pumpkin for quick bread I was baking.  I turned on my oven, then jumped in the car, scooted into one of the parking spaces, snagged a can, and made my purchase; when I got back home, the oven was still preheating.

The Vine Street store had been there for 58 years, according to a cashier who’d worked there for 14 of them.  How the neighborhood has changed since then!  In the 80s, my husband drove an ice truck, and his boss warned him to always lock the truck when he delivered there.   Now millennials and boomers alike, irrespective of economic strata, frequent the Vine Street shops, bars, and restaurants at all hours of the day and night.

The Kroger at Court and Central Parkway opened today.  It is the new shiny thing amidst historic buildings, low-slung legal offices, and other shiny new highrises.  A Vine Street employee told me that the workers there could choose to transfer to the new Kroger.  She said she was going there but was nervous about working in such a big store.  One clerk told me she was sad their little store was closing.  The 14-year employee simply said, “It’s going to be complicated.”

Yes, it’s complicated.

Two days ago, I received a thick, glossy, colored advertisement –it had to cost a couple of bucks to produce–for the grand opening of the new store.

Yesterday the Cincinnati Enquirer headline was “Kroger is back Downtown,” as if there hasn’t been a Kroger downtown for the last 58 years, as if OTR is on the fringe and doesn’t count as a downtown neighborhood.  This store, the article said, was in the “urban core.”  This store named “Kroger on the Rhine.”  Whatever.

I walked over this morning to check it out.  It took 4 minutes and 4 seconds, a good 10 minutes closer than the Vine Street Store six blocks east.  What hoopla!  The UC Band and the Cincinnati Boychoir performed around the corner, as did a contestant from The Voice (who knew most of the words of the national anthem).   Marty Brenneman and Jim Scott (Grippo bag presumably in his pocket) spoke.  There were free samples of caramel corn, cheese cubes, and goetta patties.

View from the second floor

And while I felt nostalgic about the old store which had closed a mere 13 hours earlier . . . oh, Oh, OH!  The new store was squeaky clean with shelves higher than your head.  There were  flowers and prepared meals, truffle oil and sushi.. On the second floor (the second floor!), there were restaurants and a wine store, even a
“hydration station.”

When I went to pay for my egg noodles and cantaloupe, I looked around for the Vine Street employees but didn’t spot a one.  I wondered how they had fared selling to customers carrying brief cases and monogrammed Lands’ End tote bags.  I wondered if their usual customers followed them.  I wondered if they found it “complicated.”

Now that Kroger is a 4-minute, 4-second walk away, I wonder if I will borrow the proverbial cup of sugar from my neighbors anymore.  Because even in my downtown highrise, I have neighbors, just like Jerry Seinfeld, Lucy Ricardo, and the Honeymooners did. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve “shopped” at Mary Ann’s apartment down the hall.; seems she always has what I need, be it eggs or chili powder.

Or will I think, I can walk to the grocery in 4 minutes, for Pete’s sake.  Why bother the neighbors?

People probably won’t ask me where I buy groceries anymore now that we have a big fancy one-stop shop that was featured on the front page of the newspaper. But if they do, the answer won’t be so complicated.  And in some ways, that’s too bad.

More Posts on Downtown Living:
Downsizing: We sold our house and everything in it
After 55 years in the ‘burbs, we moved downtown!
When Your Friends Live on the Street, Your Street
Our Silent Neighbor
10 Reasons Why You Should Rent an Apartment Instead of Buying a House or a Condo