There is exactly one kind of shopping that (this) Bostonist loves: grocery shopping. Every aisle seems to burst with possibilities for new and exciting dishes (or for making old, forgotten favorites), and the processed food makers of this great nation never cease to amaze us with their crazy new innovations. In the past, we have told you about our favorite places for groceries, and one of our not-so-favorite places. But for all our anti-Whole-Foods ranting, Whole Foods is too upscale and weird even to count as a proper grocery store, so it can't win the title of least-favoritest. Shaw's, on the other hand, gets no such allowance. As we were reminded Monday evening, we do not like Shaw's.
We try to avoid our two area Shaw's markets, but sometimes we need milk and olive oil after the good spots have closed at 9:00. When we are forced to stray, we usually hit the strangely shady Shaw's on Beacon Street in Somerville, but tonight we decided to go upscale and cruise over to the one in Porter Square (we had Biz Markie pumping on the iPod, so any excuse to take a little bit longer was good enough). Wow - what a weird, crappy place.
The Porter Square Shaw's is, it must be said, lovely. It is clean, bright, and, compared to Market Basket, uncrowded. Even the patrons are, on the whole, younger and more attractive (if we were single, we would come here, everything else notwithstanding). But damn - it is so wicked-expensive it hurts our feelings. Even with the stupid card, buying milk, juice, bread, and olive oil ran over $20! Bostonist hasn't done the exhaustive research to prove it, but we are absolutely certain that card is a racket.
But we could forgive that - after all, Shaw's is open late when we need it, and capitalism, much as we dread to admit it, is about giving the consumer what he wants if he is willing to pay extra for it. What we cannot forgive are the aisle signs at the Porter Square Shaw's. We understand that these signs can't possibly list everything in each aisle, and we don't expect them to. What we do expect is for the folks who put these signs together to use their six slots wisely: Veteran grocery shoppers like Bostonist know that "Baking Needs" will include flour, sugar, chocolate chips, and maybe cooking oils. The signs should use general terms like this to convey as much information as possible with just a few words. That leaves slots open for items that defy categorization.
The folks at Porter Square Shaw's apparently have no concept of this, for they seem to be concerned that people looking for "diet soda" won't guess that it's in the same place as "soda" (see above). Olive oil, on the other hand, not only didn't get its own sign or a sign that might hint at its location, it was mixed in with salad dressing, far away from the other cooking oils. Awful.
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