Green Grocer - Portland, ME

[Ellie]

Ugh, they have these flyers explaining that due to new development at 10 Dana St (the building immediately behind them) they no longer wil have access to the back door.

Long story short, they will be eliminating their fruit and produce come January. They will expand the other areas such as wine, deli, bread, etc. Such a shame! Would really like to hear more detail on this. Really concerns me the way things are "developing" intown.

Trying to look on the bright side, I was chatting with the produce guy in the Public Market. They are aware of the situation at GG and are looking to position themselves to pick up the slack. He said they'd be bringing up produce from Boston like GG does to offer better quality, price, etc. This could be a good opportunity for the PPM.

[CSASphinx]

Yeah, I saw that. Being a cynic, I wonder if this was just a convenient excuse to move away from the low-margin produce into the high margin items like wine, cheese, etc.

The rent on that place can't be cheap and it had to be hard to sell enough lettuce and carrots to make a profit. Still, I have to wonder whether the other non-produce items were selling on their own or if people picked them up because they came in for the great veggies.

Time will tell, I guess. No matter what, it is a shame.

[johnnyd]

I'm freakin'....

I definitely go primarily for the produce and inevitably end up at the register with some cheese, a bottle on special and something else. I suppose the foot traffic is big enough to keep them from moving to, say, the Dive shop next to Becky's which has great parking. Parking issues have kept me from shopping at PGG on a regular basis.

I wonder if they have considered a cafe there? Back when I worked in the Old Port I often went in there for the lunch sandwiches.

[Ellie]

I'm freakin'....

I definitely go primarily for the produce and inevitably end up at the register with some cheese, a bottle on special and something else.  I suppose the foot traffic is big enough to keep them from moving to, say, the Dive shop next to Becky's which has great parking. Parking issues have kept me from shopping at PGG on a regular basis.

I wonder if they have considered a cafe there? Back when I worked in the Old Port I often went in there for the lunch sandwiches.

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You bring up a good point about the parking. It is a challenge there and I feel the same way about the Public Market, despite the free parking (seems a pain when you just want to run in). I REALLY wish they could figure something out such as limiting the commercial parking to ?? - 3:30pm and make it all 15 minute parking after that. That's a good, what, 10 spaces you'd add. It would help anyway.

I do still hope the Market could benefit from this because I'm still in love with the concept, if not always the implementation.

CSASphinx, I felt the same way, although they were so specific with the reason -- hey maybe 10 Dana St is in the family :) For myself, I can say that the produce was often the primary draw and the non-produce items followed. ( I like the Clown for wine, Standard for bread, Hortons for cheese, etc) Those herbs, though, I will really miss the herbs.....

[CSASphinx]

Yeah Ellie,

Whenever we have people over that is abou tthe rotation of where we will go to get our stuff. Clown, Standard and sometimes Browne Trading (though not for the wine).

The Parking issue is funny to me because about 12 years ago I met one of the guys who was about to open the Greengrocer (back then near the corner of Market and Newbury Streets). I was surprised (wrongly so, I must admit) back then that he thought such a high volume business could survive in the high-rent district of the Old Port.

He was from New York and this is what he said or something like this: "The problem with Portland is people don't know how to park. If you are just running in to get something what differnce does it make if you park in a No Parking zone or double park? You'll be out in a minute anyway. If people can figure this out we'll do fine."

I commented to him that I thought it was pretty risky to open a business based on hoping people would change their parking habits.

Shows what I know....

[johnnyd]

I, having lived in NYC as a youth, thought the same tactic would fly. $45 later, I have become wiser and PCC has lost my business as a result.