The Market Report

To close out our Tampa group of stores, here's the music video for Tampa! We previously saw a music video for the Hudson County group. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

As a kind of bonus Snapshot to round out our Tampa group, here's a look at a former WT Grant back in Ybor City. WT Grant was a chain of department stores that went out of business in 1976 (and, incidentally, a chain that I frequently confuse with CH Martin ). I'm puzzled by the fact that by searching "WT Grant Ybor City" I came across two videos showing the demolition of the Ybor City WT Grant building in early 2016, when it clearly has not been demolished in early 2018. Right? And there you have it, that closes out our Tampa group! Because I was visiting family there, I didn't have much supermarket time. But I hope that at least gives NJ-area readers a look at Tampa's independent supermarket scene. Beginning on Monday, we're back with a New Jersey store tour!

Obviously, this is a supermarket blog. But sometimes something else catches my attention and I decide to post that as well. About 25 miles west of Tampa, in a small coastal town called Indian Rocks Beach, I saw something that I had never seen before. And that was this. It's a CVS. Not a CVS/pharmacy, but just a CVS. As in, a CVS drugstore without a counter for prescriptions. Just CVS. No pharmacy. The logo looks very lonely up there with no other words to keep it company, don't you think? And inside, where the pharmacy should be, there is just general merchandise shelves. Now, I'd heard about these non-pharmacy pharmacies before, but I'd never seen one in person. I don't know exactly why this store doesn't have a pharmacy counter, nor do I know if it ever did. But presumably zoning regulations or the like prevented CVS from installing a service prescription department. Does anyone know of any other big-chain drugstores without prescription counters...

Just across the street from the Ybor City Food Mart is a former grocery store now occupied by a restaurant. Demmi's Market, as it was called, has been restored on the outside for the Market on 7th bar and restaurant. The market, which dates to 1946, is much like urban supermarkets in the New Jersey area, being narrow but very deep. Notice the tile designs on the facade, similar to the Food Mart's. The Market on 7th is a few doors down from the famous Carmine's restaurant of Ybor City, where I ordered a Cuban sandwich. It was mediocre at best -- I can safely say that the Cuban sandwich at Tropical would have been much better (which I did not have but saw at the store). And I can definitely say for a fact that the Cuban sandwich at El Salvadoreño in Elizabeth, NJ is superior to that of Carmine's as well. If you're going to claim to be the "home of the Cuban Sandwich", then you can at least do a better job on it than a hole-in-the-w...

Right up the street from Ybor Supermarket is the confusingly similarly-named Ybor City Food Mart. It's also not a full supermarket (although it doesn't claim to be, either), and it does also have a deli. Operating under the name Xander Markets, the store at 1821 E 7th Ave, Tampa is in an interesting building with a very attractive (and intricate) facade on the outside. It's likely that the building was something else before the food store. I don't know exactly what, if anything, the sea horses would represent. The building has been maintained pretty well, although it's obviously quite old. This store seems to cater more to tourists, selling ice cream and souvenirs more than groceries. Very nicely kept-up tile work on the front of the building, as many Ybor City buildings have.

Ybor City is a neighborhood near downtown Tampa that has historically been the Cuban and Italian district. It's also a significant tourist destination. Founded in 1885 as a cigar-making independent city, it was absorbed into Tampa two years later. By the time of the depression, mechanization of cigar manufacturing combined with decreased demand for high-quality cigars caused Ybor City's economy to plummet. Although redevelopment has been occurring since the 1980s, it's a slow and, based on my quick observations, only moderately successful process. The vacancy rate along the main street of Ybor City, 7th Ave, is quite high. Ybor City is no longer an Italian or Cuban neighborhood as both of those populations moved outside of the central business district. Unfortunately, they took their supermarkets with them. Ybor City's remaining food markets are pretty minimal. The so-called Ybor Supermarket is nothing more than a convenience store. As shown by the sign in the ...

When eating at a neighboring restaurant, I happened to park in the parking lot of a former grocery store, now being used for overflow restaurant parking. The South Tampa Fresh Market (at 4807 S Himes Ave, Tampa) unfortunately didn't make it. The small greengrocer did have a tough location, immediately next to a huge Publix, in an area where most people drive to a large superstore for groceries. This store, like Tropical , are in buildings small enough that they could have been convenience stores or similar businesses. The bright lights behind the closed-up Fresh Market is the Publix. And one last shot, with the cell phone's flash, so that you can see the sign a little better. I think the flash made the colors appear washed-out, but the awning was also probably faded.

Directly next door to Tropical is another ethnic market, although Kim Brothers targets a different section of the world. Actually, it's called Kim Brothers Oriental Market -- I don't think anyone much really uses the word oriental to describe something Asian anymore. The name Kim Brothers would suggest the store is Korean, although it appears to be more generally Asian. You can see Tropical to the right and Kim Bros. to the left in the above photo. Kim Bros. appears to be about the same size as Tropical or maybe slightly smaller. These mediocre photos were obtained from the parking lot of the Goodwill super-high-end stylish trendy store I was shopping at across the street. Kim Bros. is located at 4021 W Hillsborough Ave, Tampa.

Spoiler alert: this was, far and away, my favorite supermarket that I visited in Tampa. Almost everything about it was done exactly right. Tropical Supermarket, which has no relation to the Key Food affiliate of the same name based in New Jersey, is located at 4019 W Hillsborough Ave, Tampa. The color scheme they use throughout, like the New Jersey chain, is very tropical in style. However, I think I like the New Jersey chain's logo better. Prior to being the Tropical Supermarket, this building housed an audio-video store, as shown in this 2007 Google street view: The store painted its facade beige, then closed by 2013. It later became MD Food Market, shown here in a 2013 street view. MD was switched to Tropical over the summer of 2015. Tropical looks by far the best of all of them. It also uses similar graphics and signs to Huracan , which makes me wonder if they share an owner -- or just a design firm (or style!). The store is quite small, no larger than a...