Sixty minutes in a grocery store

The monthly boondoggle for supporters, plus three-plus things to love

“Provincetown Grocery Store” (1900), Childe Hassam

The best bar in my neighborhood, I often tell people, has excellent parking, a beer list that rotates weekly, and sushi made to order. Also: lots of regulars from the neighborhood, sports on TV when Jeopardy! isn’t playing, and bartenders who remember your order after a couple of visits.

It also happens to be located inside a grocery store.

Regular readers know I occasionally spend 60 minutes in a place, observing things, pretending I’m texting when I’m actually noting overheard conversations. This week: an hour in my local Gelson’s, a Southern California grocery chain, where for no good reason everything cost two dollars extra, though perhaps that’s because the company still employs baggers?

Also, frequently, there’s a bar.

—It’s late afternoon and shoppers are varied, all colors, all ages, equally divided between men and women. There are also many teenagers, presumably because there’s a high school around the corner. It’s late May, and there are graduation balloons for sale at checkout, with congratulations in English and Spanish.

For the adults, fashion is California casual: jeans, sweatshirts, sneakers. For women, adidas sambas remain the default, then New Balance. For men, it’s New Balance followed by Nike Air Force Ones.

Among the high school girls: many Ugg boots worn with bike shorts. Among the boys: lots of chunky boots worn with very wide-legged pants.

—The background music is light pop. Signs label sections in all-caps, perhaps to seem up-scale. The color palette for signage is generally pale: pale blue, pale green, lots of tans and off-whites.

A large serpentine sculpture, blue and gray, hangs above the produce section for no good reason, as though we’re shopping in the lobby of a Hyatt.