Open To The Public

A couple of months ago a food service distributor opened a retail store not too far from my house.  The store really caters to restaurants, non-profit organizations, party planning or catering businesses, but unlike some places that don't sell to the general public, anyone can shop at this one.  Today I stopped in to see what they had.

It was so much fun!  I felt like a kid in a candy store.  I'm used to shopping at Costco, where they sell  consumer-sized containers bundled together.  This store was the real deal for commercial vendors.  I wandered up and down the aisles, admiring the industrial-sized containers of groceries and huge bags and boxes of frozen food.  Each package conveniently listed how many servings it contained.

Half of one aisle was devoted to catering supplies (serving trays, coffee urns, and food warmers) and disposables (foam carry out containers of various sizes and shapes, pizza boxes, and Chinese take out boxes).  The beverage section started with enormous bags of ground coffee and massive boxes of tea bags.  That segued into an area devoted to bar supplies: substantial-sized bottles of non-alcoholic ingredients for mixed drinks, jumbo-sized jars of maraschino cherries, cocktail olives, and large canisters of rimming sugar and salt.

Institution-sized mops and buckets were displayed next to huge jugs of soap and other chemicals and supplies you'd use to keep a restaurant clean. This area also contained cases of hand towels and sleeves of napkins big and small.  There was a small selection of chef's clothing, pots and pans, kitchen gear, supplies, and serving utensils.

Even though most of the packages were way too large for my house, I did find a few things to buy.  On the clearance rack I snagged a package of the restaurant-burrito-sized tortillas Son Donald likes to use, and from the produce section I picked up a bag of spinach the same size I usually buy at Costco.  And, strangely enough in this land of humongous, I got a one-pound bag of barley that was located next to much larger bags of beans and grains.

Five years ago today: Not Just Cucumbers