Trader Joe's

[JerzeeGrlinOKC]

That's a silly argument, no offense. They are in St. Louis and New Mexico already, and are rumored to be coming to Kansas City. Are you saying that because they are not already in Texas, that means they are actively boycotting the plains states? I see no justification for that argument. In my opinion, Trader Joes would be a good fit for OKC, their prices and goods are a happy medium between Homeland and Whole Foods.

I sure hope you're right stlokc, and you're right, it is a lousy reason on its own, but I just have a feeling its another tick against us. I've become discouraged in general. When we can't even keep Albertson's here and have to beg borrow cheat and steal to get a WF to even consider opening one store, when their headquarters are 6 hours down the road and it seems every other city has one; when I see a map like that, I honestly just say "forget it". I am surprised about Texas though to be honest, since the big cities have such a healthy-support for the upscale or trendy grocery concept. Plus I'm sure our liquor laws don't help (but are NOT the only reason). I don't know much about it, but sometimes I think the grocery distribution lobby in OK also has something to do with this issue, too.

Overall: everyone on this board has speculated for the reasons why we can't attract national upscale grocery chains, but nobody can agree with certainty on the overall cause. I'll air on the side of pessimism and say I just doubt we'll get a TJ any time soon.

[bluedogok]

I sure hope you're right stlokc, and you're right, it is a lousy reason on its own, but I just have a feeling its another tick against us. I've become discouraged in general. When we can't even keep Albertson's here and have to beg borrow cheat and steal to get a WF to even consider opening one store, when their headquarters are 6 hours down the road and it seems every other city has one; when I see a map like that, I honestly just say "forget it". I am surprised about Texas though to be honest, since the big cities have such a healthy-support for the upscale or trendy grocery concept. Plus I'm sure our liquor laws don't help (but are NOT the only reason). I don't know much about it, but sometimes I think the grocery distribution lobby in OK also has something to do with this issue, too.

Overall: everyone on this board has speculated for the reasons why we can't attract national upscale grocery chains, but nobody can agree with certainty on the overall cause. I'll air on the side of pessimism and say I just doubt we'll get a TJ any time soon.

Albertson's closed all over the country and pretty much have only stayed open in a few select markets like Dallas, their closing had more to do with their company being leveraged to the hilt and competition than it had to do with markets. HEB down here pretty much drove them out of Central and South Texas, they couldn't come close to competing and all of them closed in the Austin area. I know my dad wishes HEB would open up there after going to the stores down here.

I've always wondered why Safeway hasn't come back into the state or Kroger's hasn't moved in. My sister went to Kroger most of the time when she lived in Little Rock, we have Safeway down here under the Randall's name, in DFW they operate under the Tom Thumb name.

[CCOKC]

In Boise ID the Kroger's brand is called Fred Meyer. It is kind of like a Wal-Mart supercenter in that is had furniture and bedding, jewelry and such. It had a larger selections of bulk items and the stores were definitely nicer than anything we have here. It just didn't have certain items that I was used to here e.g. pecans (have you ever tried to cook Christmas dinner without pecans?) peter pan peanut butter, Sister Shubert's rolls (yum) and Luzianne tea. All of us southerners would have large suitcases full of staples when we came back and would share with all the others who were missing our staples.