A surreal shopping experience

Since I'm usually up late, like to get out, and don't usually have to drag the kids along with me to the store, I've elected to do most of the marketing for the house in recent months. I enjoy it, and have actually become quite the grocery shopper. I can tell you what the better deal is on steak/pork/chicken, how much I should pay for Cheerios by the ounce before it is a 'deal', and can run down our 'staples' list pretty quickly when asked.

When shopping, I usually tend to stick to the stores I know. I like to venture out on occasion, but when pressed, especially in California, I try to stick to Vons, Safeway, Albertsons, and, when in Hemet, Stater Bros. So, when shopping here in Visalia, I plugged grocery into Garmin and drove to the familiar. First, I ran by Vons, because it was fairly close at 5 miles away. When I drove by, you could almost still smell the fresh ink on the For Lease sign... so on to Albertson's - 8 miles away. Now, there were several 'markets' that were close, but they all sounded small and independent, or large and Food4Less-ish, which I try not to shop at. Anyhow - on to Albertson's, regardless of which freeways I need to take to get there...

When I arrived at 'Albertson's' according to Garmin, there was no Albertson's, but a different grocery there. Once again, I'd been "Garmin'd". It turns out that a Hispanic-focused grocery store, Vallarta, bought out a number of Albertson's and opened shop there. I've run into this chain a couple of times before, most memorably back in Salinas, but hadn't gone in yet. I figured this time, with the three-strike rule in effect (No Vons, No Albertson's, No other recognizable Grocery chain within 15 miles), it might be time to just bite the bullet and shop the store. It was a life-changing experience for me - in the way I think about things, and how I might react to other things in the future. More on that at the end - first, let me tell you about the store.

Now, I've been in A LOT of Japanese/Asian markets, and I expect what they usually are. A Japanese television program playing in the background. A Couple of people in the back doing what, I have no idea. Most of the product in this little, tiny, poorly-lit and kinda-smelly storefront is in Japanese with odd (to us) labels, and they try their best to have some kind of English label on them if they can. Much of the stuff looks other-worldly, but I know enough to wander around and find what I want to eat and buy. It’s a niche market on a small scale, and it works. I know that in some towns they are bigger, but they are still niche.

Vallarta was a completely different deal. It was big, well-stocked, and put me in a different world. I felt like I'd been transported to Mexico City and had to wander around the supermercado, not the tienda, to get provisions. I will start off by saying this - these guys do it right. They know their market, they cater specifically to that market, and they aren't worried about having everything for everyone. I didn't think to look, but I was probably the only non-Hispanic person in the place. From the music over the loudspeaker to the check stand calls (spoken too fast for me to understand anything other than "lina tres" (must be a phone call on line 3).

The clientele was fitting too. I passed the fully-dressed Mariachi band member looking like he just got off work to the usual bright-colored dress of the teenagers. Not a word of English to be heard.

On walking in I decided to do what I could and expected to be able to fill my list just like at any grocery. First up, a little beer. Here's what the cooler looks like - 12 doors, 3 of them dedicated to nothing but Bud Light. They know what their clientele drink.  4 doors of several different Mexican/Central American beers and a door or two for 'other varieties'. Love it. I picked up the one size of Coors cans they stocked, and moved on.

Next on my list - zucchini. They don't have zucchini. They do have about 13 varieties of peppers, packaged so many different ways that it took me 5 minutes to go through it all. They even had stuff that I'd never seen before (left). Keep in mind - we've been in California in some pretty heavily-populated Hispanic markets, AND I look for stuff that I've never seen before just so I can buy it and learn how to cook/grill it - especially vegetables and fruits. Anyway - after going through the entire produce section I found my zucchini, now simply called ‘Italian Squash’. Perfect.

On to meats. WOW. I honestly had no idea there were that many different types of Tripe. They had it all, packaged in any amount you could think of - just like you see Rib-eye packaged in American stores - exactly the same I'd say -- think, thin, cross-cut, roast, large quantities, small quantities, all of it. Again, I was humbled in thinking that it was amazing that some Wal-Marts in SoCal carried it at all. Clearly, little did I know how many different ways Tripe is offered.

Another amazing rack of choices was with the Chorizo sausage. I thought there was only one kind. Clearly, as you can see from the picture - there are a lot of options to choose from.

I took some other miscellaneous pictures to show off the market, and will put captions with each to tell what it is. However, my shopping trip, and this post are not yet finished...

This was their prepared Carne, Pollo, etc. section - I dreamed of street tacos.

FRESH Cheeses, and I only took a pic of 1/3 of the case.  I'm going back.

Ceviche anyone?  This is a case that is stocked everyday.

While I was very tempted by the avocado dip, the green salsa and the other
interesting dishes, the 'Pork Skin in Vinegar' (left) wasn't for me this round.

It should have been apparent to me that some of my shopping list, specifically Whole Wheat English Muffins, was not going to get taken care of in this environment. Simply put, Hispanic people do not need to have 9 different kinds of this item from 3 different vendors on the shelves. This store is pointed specifically at one type of clientele, and English Muffins are not widely consumed in that demographic, (as you can see from the single package, top right) obviously.

Chocolate chips were another item that I was surprised at. A staple in our household as treats for Jill and the kids; it appears that this population does not have the love for them that we do. The first photo shows what the stores I normally shop at have - 16 different facings of various options.

Vallarta? Well, as you can see in the photo below - ONE (toll-house and peanuty, so I can't buy it) kind, and ONE kind of Powdered Sugar, and ONE kind of coconut, and ONE... just a different shopping experience from the usual baking aisle, for the right reasons.

A few facts, and then my takeaway from this whole thing. Vallarta has been voted the #1 Hispanic Supermarket, and from the pictures you have to see why. A family business, Vallarta Supermarkets started in 1985 as a single store in Van Nuys, CA with 5 employees, and soon needed a second store to increase revenue. Their idea was to take their background as a hard-working farm family from Jalisco - now a hard-working multi-purposed family of 5 boys in the US, all working various jobs in various food/catering fields, contributing to the family income even as students in high-school - and cater to the Hispanic community - one which the big-box stores were largely under serving in their offerings. Vallarta now showcases 39 stores in a number of California counties with about 8,000 employees.

What I loved about this experience was that it made me see things from a whole different side. I'm concerned that some people reading this might take it as racist or elitist, and truly - it is meant to be anything but that. Here's a store that picked one type of clientele, and chose to serve them specifically. From creating the cuts of meat they want to the produce they buy to the prepared items they eat - and doing it so well that they don't have to care about anyone else. What a great business model. Even more amazing was that there were so many things that I think of 'staples' that aren't staples - they are simply items that a majority of shoppers buy. I'm certain that if I were trying to fill out a two-week list of the things we normally buy, that I'd not have found half of them in any style that I normally buy them in Vallarta. Why stock it if it won't sell?

The most important takeaway for me was to look at how I look at things as a white male, and how catered-to I am in most of this American society. I've always been a guy, thanks to poker, that tries to look at things from the other side. This 'other side' was too big for me to see though. I'm grateful that I've had the experience and only hope that I can show my kids to look at the world from more than their own singular perspective.

I was so impressed with the in-your-face approach of Vallarta -- the 'take-care-of-our-own' attitude that it has spun me for a loop. Mostly it has made me see things from that side of the coin. Kudos to them. And now, I know where I can get 5 different kinds of everything I want when I want to make authentic Mexican dishes - which we love. Now, I just wish these folks were in New Jersey...