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Adieu to a neighbor

December 21, 2009 12:36 am

POOR RICHMOND. Ukrop's has been our retail neighbor in Greater Fredericksburg for only 12 years, but many food shoppers here have grown remarkably partial to the Route 3 store. Ukrop's, however, has been in Richmond since 1937, expanding to around 25 stores there and reigning as that region's market leader from the 1980s until Food Lion overtook it this year. Now, all the big cats in the grocery jungle have taken their smaller competitor down.

Added to the recent losses of the AAA Braves and such onetime hometown powerhouses as Best Products and Circuit City, the sale of Ukrop's stores to a Dutch conglomerate, which also owns Giant, constitutes a massacre of Richmond institutions unmatched since the Army of the Potomac paid its infelicitous visit. But unlike those other tumbled icons, Ukrop's is a place thousands of Richmonders, and many Fredericksburgers, visit weekly, pronouncing themselves well-pleased.

Indeed, there is much to like about Ukrop's, starting with its customer service. Friendly clerks--none of whom sport neck tattoos and complain operatically about their hours--check you out. Helpful baggers roll your groceries to the car. They'll take tips, of course. All you have to do is present them with a U.N. Security Council resolution and waterboard them a few times. Can't find an item? No big-game hunter ever had a more dogged tracker than a Ukrop's associate on the trail of Manwich.

Ukrop's is also renowned for its heart. From 1990 to 2007, notes the Richmond Times-Dispatch, it "contributed more than $30 million through annual campaigns, capital gifts, sponsorships, donations, and product discounts to nonprofit organizations." Many in these parts know firsthand.

Some gripe that Ukrop's never got the word about the repeal of Prohibition and blue laws: It sells no alcohol and closes on Sunday. But the same Baptist faith behind those decisions also leads management to treat workers like family, deserving of a weekly day of rest and a bevy of paid holidays unobserved by 99 percent of retailers. Rightly, Forbes named Ukrop's one of the 100 best U.S. companies for which to work.

Ukrop's chief virtue is to slow folks down, allowing them to catch their breath in a place personable and relaxed, where Lesley Gore's tears over being two-timed (surely no store on Earth plays "It's My Party" so often) define the apogee of human care. It's a letdown to leave Fried Chicken Highway and rejoin the crazed pack.

So, to The Last Convertible and Tim Riley's Bar, soon add Ukrop's to the list of fond things that once were. Richmond is heartbroken, and we're not feeling so hot ourselves.