This store has the wood-paneling-and-glass/tower design that seems to be the thing of the moment for grocery architecture. Up on the roof, there's some sort of fancy seating area -- I'm not sure if it was just closed for the season or if it's not intended to be in general use. Either way, I doubt it saw any real use this year! Oh, and pay attention to what's inside the glass tower -- it's a lot cooler than it may look from here...
I had never even heard of PCC, but it seems like a Co-op type operation. Thus, I'm not surprised to hear about the prices being high, but I suspect the food is more 'natural' (I think that word is troublesome) than what's available at regular supermarkets and the produce might be quite fresh.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I can tell that you don't like these types of stores, lol, at least it can be said that the cars in the parking lot seem to be regular cars and not the Porsches and expensive SUVs we've seen at other hoity-toity places that you didn't like visiting. Of course, there are multiple Subarus in just this image, but I think that has to be expected at a natural foods store in the NW, lol.
Yeah, supposedly the food is quite good, but Safeway is good enough for me! 😉 This store wasn't too bad relatively speaking, since it isn't in a crazy wealthy area, but still not my kind of place.
DeleteHa, good to see this place living up to its stereotypes! Modern Subarus do seem to be rather popular among the well-off in this area. I also suspect that some of the cars that you see here (like perhaps the old pickup) belong to people visiting the marine supply store behind me, which was pretty busy! I have to wonder if part of the reason that people around here have cars that seem old is that the cost of living around here is so much higher than most of the country...
Yeah, I would probably rather shop at Randall's, Food Town, or Fiesta than a place like the PCC. I agree with you there!
DeleteI have a friend who lives in a Northern California town near Sacramento and there are all kinds of old cars there as far as I can tell. All kinds of 1980s and 1990s domestic and Japanese cars. Most of them look to be in at least decent condition as well. I suspect the high cost of living does contribute to people holding on to older cars, but at least in the case of Northern California, they have a pretty dry climate. The lack of snow and moisture means that cars don't rust away like they do elsewhere.
I'm not sure about the climate of the NW. Certainly some parts receive a lot of rain, but I know it kind of depends by location. I also don't know if there are too many days with salted/brined roads that contributes to rusty cars.
Here in Houston, we rarely get snow/icy roads. It's not unheard of, but it's not common either. We do get a lot of rain though, but that's not as bad for rust as the snow/ice. I think one reason why you won't see as many older cars here is because our city is so spread out that people put a lot of miles on their cars. You'd be surprised how beat up even some ~10 year old cars look over here and we don't even have rust problems (except for maybe those who live in coastal parts of Houston, but that's a pretty small part of the population).