The Blork Blog

Last week Maggie presented good evidence that the venerable Warshaw’s is on the verge of closing – evidence that was picked up by M-J Milloy and reported in last week’s Hour.

Warshaw’s, for the uninitiated, is a large and long-standing neighbourhood grocery and housewares store on Boul. St. Laurent in Montreal. It’s been there since the dawn of time, and is considered to be something of an institution, particularly among the various students and other anglo immigrants from the Rest Of Canada whose sense of Montreal is centred on that ribbon of rue that we call the Main. The Main, is, after all, the Canadian Greenwich Village – mixed up and multicultural, an historic gathering ground for all kinds of fruits and nuts, and currently undergoing the gentrification that has always been threatened but until recently never appeared.

I’ve been shopping at Warshaw’s since I first arrived on this island some 15 years ago. At first, I bought into the romanticized version of the store, and even believed the hype from the Montreal Mirror and the McGill Daily, who insisted it offered the best deals in town. Eventually – after I realized that the mythical bargains referred primarily to chipped pottery and week-old bagged bananas covered in slime – I simply went there out of convenience.

What really struck me about Warshaw’s were the employees. I found their working-class demeanor somewhat endearing – almost quaint – given that it is so close to my own roots. Yet it seemed so out of place in my exotic adopted city. Unfortunately, however, they were also among the nastiest store employees I have ever encountered. Nasty in terms of the way they looked right through you, not acknowledging your presence.

It always bugged me the way a cashier would ring up my order while carrying on a conversation with the cashier behind me about her hot date on Saturday night – speaking right through me like I wasn’t even there. Or perhaps she’d walk away from the cash while my apples rolled helplessly on the scale because she wanted to check out another cashier’s vacation photos – never offering an apology or acknowledgment when she returned. Or maybe it was just the yawning sense of boredom she gave off while asking me for my $23.95.

Then there were the produce guys. There’s nothing like checking out the avocados while a produce guy yells over your head to another produce guy that he can’t wait to “get out of this fuken place” so he can go out and buy a bag of pot for the weekend.

To be fair, not all were so bad. Over the span of 10 or so years I watched one cashier – a short girl with enormous long and frizzy hair – grow from a shy high school girl to a confident woman, and then she disappeared. Then there was the quiet produce guy with the whisker on his chin who you just knew was in a jazz or ska band on the weekends. He hung around for two or three years and then was gone. There’s also the unassuming old guy in the produce area who I always assumed owned the place – last time I saw him (a few months ago) he looked very sad. But those cashiers – those damned cashiers – just killed me with their indifference.

Don’t get me wrong – I prefer that to the pandering shit-eating grins and faux conversation you get from chain store clerks who are told to smile or be fired. But that’s like saying I prefer a slap in the face to a boot to the head.

My preference is that which I experienced when I lived on Ave. de la Hotel de Ville (two minutes from Warshaw’s). During those four years I did most of my shopping at the small and delightful Soares et Fils, a family-run Portuguese grocery store on rue Duluth. Good basic cheeses, fresh produce, and a butcher who was always willing to cut-to-order. At the cash was either Mom or one of her two daughters – one of whom I witnessed pass through puberty. Although they didn’t know me by name, they knew my face, and there were plenty of smiles going around. I loved that sense of familiarity – something I never felt at Warshaw’s.

Do I lament the (possible) demise of Warshaw’s? Yes, but only in theory. The last thing we need on the Main is a damn Loblaw’s or another damn Provigo. What we need is a family-run grocery with employees who are aware of the small role they play in the lives of the people who live in the neighbourhood. A store like Supermarché PA for example, or Mourelato’s.

Perhaps the official line out of Warshaw’s is true – that they are renovating, not closing. If so, that means the prices will go up. But that’s OK, it’s a better alternative to having another chain store move in – and those with lighter pockets will go to places like Soares et Fils.