Big Saver, my once favorite grocery store on Ave 26 and Figueroa is closing. I went back for one last time to stock up on Topo Chico and see if anything else might be of interest. They were already out of the mineral water, and the rest of the store was slim pickings. I bought some mole, achiote paste, and some canned chipotle chiles. All their piñatas had already been carelessly dumped into the prime territory where you would normally see all the dry chiles for the approaching tamal season. It was also the place I shared practical cooking tips with señoras also gathering their ingredients. Yeah, I’ll miss it but oh well, it’s over.
They were no longer my go-to store: once they started having issues with the refrigerated veggie section, the quality of their groceries suffered. What’s the point of 3 cilantros for a dollar if they are all wilted and gross? There is no point. The neighborhood has also changed and I would more often run into some new residents getting their booze needs and hopelessly perplexed about their Euro cuisine requirements that they couldn’t find. Recently the hand baskets disappeared. I asked the cashier and she said they had been stolen and wouldn’t be replaced because they would disappear again. She seemed indifferent to the line of people trying to juggle more than a few items in two hands. She must have known something cuz to her it was all over.
It was obvious the property owners were trying to drive all the businesses out. When the pharmacy left, nothing took it’s place.
When the crappy restaurant left, nothing replaced it either. I bet they are just waiting for the lease to expire on Yum Yum Donuts to turn the whole property into some generic gentrified shithole. Like the rest of this city that is becoming a very pretty toilet.
RIP my local Big Saver. RIP 2018, you were crap.
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For many years it was the “Gateway Market”, owned by “Lino LaBianca” who along with his wife “Rosemary” were brutally murdered in their Silverlake home, supposedly mistakenly, by the infamous “Manson Family”, or was it a payback hit by the Mafia for “Lino’s” financial shucking and jiveing? Some LA Noir to add to the dark side of history.