Vic's Grocery

If there is anything as ubiquitous as restaurants in San Francisco it is corner stores. When I moved into my building 22 years ago there was an almost fully functioning corner market with fresh produce and sandwiches made to order. I say almost because they tried hard to succeed in a not so ideal location—just far enough off the beaten path for it to struggle to find a steady enough clientele. John, Wayne or their father would flip up the garage door promptly at 7:30 every morning whether I was ready to get up or not and open the store. I loved walking down stairs in the morning and getting my daily muffin and picking out some fruit from the displays propped up on hay bales in the middle of the store. If either the muffin or the berries were moldy as they quite often were I would walk downstairs and replace them. I didn’t worry about running out of half and half, butter or eggs because it was almost as convenient as opening my own refrigerator. Probably the nicest thing about “your” corner store is shopping in a place where people know your name, something about you and what was generally happening in the neighborhood. Robin Williams lived up the street at the time and I was always trying to get a glimpse of him in the store.

Produce other than fruit was iffy— an emergency type of purchase only but the grocery shelves, neatly stocked and clean offered mostly natural food rather than typical corner store junk. The beer selection was good too. My favorite feature of the store was the wooden walk-in refrigerator that held the cooler doors. When the dad retired they sold the store to a couple they must have known from their church—a pious Vietnamese woman who read the bible behind the counter and her loud and burly husband. They took out the deli and the produce out to simplify the operation and it just went down hill from there. I didn’t like going down there because the guy was overly talkative and there was less and less to purchase anyway. I don’t think they lasted more than a year. The market closed and was remodeled for an art gallery. Although they took everything out they left the walk-in and turned the cooler doors into display cabinets for their decorative glass. John and Wayne settled into the insurance business and I buy all my policies from them to this day.

While driving home one day from through the Mission I drove down 26th Street instead my usual 25th Street route and came across “Vic’s Grocery” on Harrison. It was then that an idea hit me for a way to write about Victor in a way similar to “Dinner with Vida”. We would explore the corner stores, small grocery and produce markets all over the city and I could muse on their endlessly fascinating quirks and idiosyncrasies. I wanted to wait until Victor was old enough to enjoy the experience and finally last weekend we had some time to ourselves and we hit “Vic’s.”

When I told Vic we were going to stop at the store for a treat he was all for it. He has an amazing sweet tooth. Although it is only September, the Halloween decorations were already up and a large purple skeleton hanging by the front door fascinated Victor. We lingered around the entrance and checked out the decorations and I took a picture of the front nervous that I would get caught and scolded. Storeowners don’t like people to take pictures in their businesses without asking.

Nobody goes into a corner store to shop. It would be rare to find an actual shopping basket. Usually you know what you want, you get it and leave quickly. So to walk into a store like Vic’s with the intent to look around feels strange. I felt a huge amount of internal pressure to move quickly and just grab a couple of things—if I mean to linger in any of these stores I better get up some nerve I guess. I thought it would be fun to let Victor spontaneously pick something out that he wanted just to see what would happen and then I would pick something interesting, fun or just plain weird and a beer. Victor went immediately to the orange Tic Tacs—something he knows Vida likes and tipped over the whole box. I nervously picked them up and encouraged him to pick something else. He chose some M and M’s. I was going to buy a “Large Honey Bun” but thought twice when I read the calorie content and instead got a bag of Cracker Jack something I remember from my childhood that I know neither Vic or Vida has ever had. I also go a grande Bud Light for kicks. We continued to wander the aisles coming across a display of large kitchen matches in decorative boxes. These kinds of store always have some strange items that someone thought they could sell but just end up collecting dust.

The store in general was a wreck. There were partially stocked boxes on the floors including the ever-present bowls of ramen and none of the three ice cream freezers were working. The friendly guy at the counter was eating a huge burrito and talking while he rung us up. I couldn’t resist telling him Victor’s name but it seemed to go right over his head and he went right into the fact that he had “five kids one wife”.

We ate some Cracker Jack in the car, which Victor enjoyed very much and saved the M and M’s for later. It took a couple of days for Victor to remember about the candy but eventually he did. I opened them up and they were unusual colors—pink, light green and baby blue. They were also broken and the coating was coming off. I looked on the outside of the package and they were “Spring” M and M’s. Since I have never come across bad M and M’s it isn’t clear whether those ones were from this past spring—awful enough—or the year previous. Now in my experience corner stores mostly sell beer, soda and candy so to get a questionable bag of candy is really a bad sign.

Vic’s Snack—M and M’s My Snack—Cracker Jack-- Beer of the Day—Bud light16 oz