Meiner's on the Plaza closing

[KCPowercat]

comments? Big loss? When I lived on the Plaza, I only used Meiners maybe 7 times....

[Rooster_Ties]

Is that the mini-grocery store, on Jefferson St. - one block south of the movie theater complex?? If so, then no big loss in my book.

I imagine most people go to Sunfresh in Westport, like nearly everyone from Downtown to UMKC probably does.

It was so 'upscale' and pricy, I'm not sure it's loss will really hurt anything, in the long run.

[KCPowercat]

actually I hate Sunfresh..overpriced and bad selection....Price Chopper in Brookside is 100 times better....Meiners was the grocery store

[Rooster_Ties]

Really?? I've never been to the Price Chopper in Brookside, but I'll have to check 'em out.

Sunfresh is so much better than they were back when they were in the "Old Westport" shopping center (now an Ace Hardware), that I hadn't realized that they were still perhaps lacking.

And frankly, I was just so glad when the 'new' (now not quite as new) "Sunfresh" opened up in Westport, that I never have given any other stores another thought. Like the Applemarket by the Uptown - there's a store that's lacking in some places (to put it politely).

[mean]

actually I hate Sunfresh..overpriced and bad selection....Price Chopper in Brookside is 100 times better....

Agreed. I finally went in there the other day, and it is 100 times better for so many reasons...

[dangerboy]

I don't think Meiners will be missed that much. It was a specialty grocer that catered to a pretty narrow demographic. Marsh's and Price Chopper are both close and accessible by bus or car.

Definitely check out Price Chopper in Brookside. I'm also on 39th Street and usually make the drive down there, unless I need something from Marsh's right away. Just the caliber of employees at Price Chopper makes it worth the trip, not to mention better produce and overall better cleanliness.

[Brooksider]

I still shop Meiners. Price Chopper is too crowded and I hate having to use their shopper card to get the sale price.

[bahua]

Price Chopper is a ways from Midtown. Midtown and downtown suffer from a dramatic lack of grocery stores, as we all know, and we have all gotten to the point that we are actually accustomed to driving ten miles to get groceries. Doesn't anyone else think that that's ridiculous?

[KC_JAYHAWK]

Meiner's is great for picking up fresh poultry, meat and/or a sandwich and chips, but I never shopped their frequently. I think it will be a loss, especially the convenience aspect of picking up a few quick items.

BTW, Sunfresh in Westport sucks, unless you don't mind the long check out lines, terrible service, rude checkers and baggers and the general I don't give a SH$T attitude most of the people have that work there.

[MidtownGrrl]

When we lived close to Brookside, I prefered IGA (now Price Chopper) to Meiner's. Meiners had way to many idiots cluelessly blocking the aisles while asking their significant other which cake mix/mustard/potatoes to pick up. I really don't like the 'card' mentality, so you won't find me in Price Chopper.

Our closest store is the SavALot on Troost, but I admit I've only been there once.

Marsh's Sunfresh in Westport is fine. I've had good and bad experiences there. I think their front line managers do suck - I have seen a 'manager' ream a bagger in front of a bunch of customers. I've spent enough time as a bagger and cashier to be happy with a merely pleasant exchange. I appreciate the store's organic selection. And I haven't been in a long line in months there.

[KCLofts]

As much as I hate battling through the trash-strewn entrance and dealing with the poor service, SunFresh is still my grocery of choice. For me, its the most convenient and has the best selection in the area.

The Apple Market is indeed scary and I haven't gone there since SunFresh opened up.

For those closer to the Plaza, the Hen House on Shawnee Mission Pkwy next to the new Houlihans/old Houston's is pretty nice as well.

I never did go to Meiner's. I don't know that they'll be particularly missed, but it is sad to see the smaller grocers go. It would be nice to have something like that closer to downtown.

[carfreekc]

Meiners will be missed by all the people on the Plaza who don't drive/have cars, especially the elderly residents.

When I moved back to KC, I lived right across the street from Meiners on the Plaza. It was key to living carfree here (especially after I broke my foot the night I moved back). The grocery store was one of the main factors in deciding whether I would rent at the poets apartments or at the Park Lane.

Now I live in Brookside, where I have two grocery stores within walking distance. When the IGA was closed for remodeling, I still had Meiners. (MidtownGrrl, I had to laugh when I read your post. My roommate hates Meiners in Brookside for the same reason. I don't particularly care which one I go to. I live closest to Price Chopper, so I go to the Price Chopper. If I lived closer to the Brookside Meiners, I'd go there most of the time.)

This old Star article about the closing of the Muelhbach's grocery store that was in the space before Meiners still rings true today now that Meiners will close. (I worked on the Plaza when Muelhbach's closed and missed it too. I lived in Quality Hill then and would stop off at Muelhbach's for some groceries before getting my bus home.) But today Bruce Smith Drugs is gone too. Has anyone been to the Plaza Pantry at 4802 Belleview Ave. to say what that's like?

The Kansas City Star, August 15, 1994

It's only one grocery store, but for older residents its closing illustrates: The Plaza problem

Author: ERIC ADLER

Until recently 69-year-old Kenneth Baker thought his life was rolling along pretty well living near the Country Club Plaza.

Because he has a bad leg, he doesn't drive. But then again he never had to. He enjoyed being independent. He took pride in it.

With a food store and drugstore right on the Plaza, he could remain self-sufficient, walking slowly from his apartment to the stores, placing delivery orders or pulling his milk, bread and other essentials home in a small metal cart.

"I don't like to depend on anybody. I'm just stubborn that way," he said.

Then in May, Baker's world changed dramatically as it did for hundreds of older Plaza area residents. Muehlbach's West - the tiny Jefferson Street grocery store, an institution for 62 years - closed for good, marking the first time ever that the Plaza proper has been without a general grocer.

Although the closing of a single store may seem relatively insignificant, and although it appears another grocer will eventually fill the void - Meiners Sun Fresh is now negotiating with J.C. Nichols Co. for the space - the closing of Muehlbach's West has become more than a temporary shopping inconvenience.

In many respects, it has also brought into sharp relief the fragile existences many older people now lead along Kansas City's most upscale shopping area and just how much, over the years, the neighborhood has changed for them.

"This area is just filled with people who are older or retired who moved here because everything was convenient," said Susann Rhodes, who has lived on the Plaza since 1958 and well remembers the days when the shopping area was home to at least two grocers and when older folks could find inexpensive meals or goods at places such as Putsch's cafeteria or Woolworth's. "But the Plaza has changed a lot. That's all gone. " Indeed, instead of cafeterias, the Plaza since the 1970s increasingly has become a place for couture and cappuccino, an upscale decision for the J.C. Nichols Co., the Plaza's developer.

But it also is a decision that some perceive as a step away from the original vision when J.C. Nichols announced the project in 1922.

Bill Worley, a historian at Sterling College in Sterling, Kan., and author of J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City" , said that when the Plaza was built, Nichols had two markets in mind: shoppers who arrived by car and people who arrived by foot from the surrounding neighborhood, some of which he helped create.

"I think what it boils down to, looking at the company strategy, is that in the '70s and '80s, they went way upscale," Worley said.

"At this point they have completely discounted the idea that the Plaza is related to the people immediately around it. It is a destination center. " The J.C. Nichols Co. vigorously disputes that is has been less attentive to the neighborhood, pointing out that the shopping district offers numerous services and is actively trying to get a grocer in the old Muehlbach space.

"There are a lot of grocery stores in that area. They are just not located in the Plaza proper," said Kelly Sherman, J.C. Nichols vice president of communications and land development. "We still have a drugstore, a beauty salon and a place to mail packages and lots of services that are not in the limelight, but they are there and they are viable operations. " Nonetheless, some older Plaza residents still believe living on the Plaza is just not as easy as it once was.

"A lot of the older people can't even afford the meals around here anymore," said Florence Mills of Mission, who sat on the Plaza recently with her friend, Ruth Hawkins, a Plaza area resident since 1967.

Many older people, the women said, now eat at McDonald's, Mr. Good Cents or the food court in Seville Square because they are relatively affordable. Hawkins said many had come to depend on Muehlbach's.

"I have several friends who don't have wheels," she said. "They were very disappointed. Some said they might even be moving away from the Plaza. " Indeed, many older Plaza residents said that of all the changes on the Plaza, the closing of Muehlbach West was probably felt most keenly.

People without cars, such as Baker, said they now must depend on friends or relatives to help them gather items such as milk and bread.

Some walk to the Piggly Wiggly supermarket at 51st and Main streets, a few blocks south and east of the Plaza. But others fret about that same walk in the winter. Numerous residents on the west side of the Plaza already think it's too far. There are worries about traffic and what it will take to push or pull a grocery cart up Main Street's gradual uphill grade.

"I can't drive. And the Piggly Wiggly is too far up the hill.

It's quite a distance for me," Baker said.

Although the Plaza is viewed as an upscale, wealthy area, for many older people in the neighborhood that really is not true - a fact which can make relying on taxis or food delivery services, at $5 to $10 a trip, prohibitively expensive.

The 1990 U.S. Census shows that, depending on the block, between 20 and 40 percent of the homes or apartments are occupied by people 65 or older. That's about 830 households. The income in more than 45 percent of those households is less than $15,000 a year. In more than two-thirds of the homes, the individuals are at least 75 years old.

Ever since the Muehlbach closed, Bruce Smith Drugs on the Plaza has been carrying some staple foods to help some older people get by.

"We didn't carry any of this before," said drugstore worker Patty Collins standing in front of several shelves of soups, rice, breakfast cereal, flour coffee, sugar and other foods.

She said the drugstore has started ordering twice as much milk as it did before the grocer closed. The shipment that is delivered on Friday, she said, is usually gone by Monday morning. Many of the Plaza's older residents have the milk delivered.

"A lot of the older people are really complaining. They miss the Muehlbach badly. They wish there was another store," Collins said.

Apparently the Nichols Co. feels the same way.

Sherman said the Nichols Co. was disappointed when grocery owner Bob Muehlbach decided to close the store to concentrate on his other business, a pool company.

"We're attempting to find a grocer to take it over. That's our goal, although that doesn't mean there couldn't be another use," she said.

Although Sherman said she recognizes the hardship that the store's closing has caused - and hopes a new grocer will soon take over the space - she also said that in contemplating a replacement, the J.C. Nichols Co. must think about all the Plaza residents as well as those who travel to shop.

Sherman said that her demographics show that within a half-mile radius of the Plaza, people 65 and older make up 21 to 29 percent of the population, which is a minority. The average age of residents in the area is 43. She said it is important for the company to take into account all types of shoppers, not only the area residents, but also the many people who travel to the Plaza.

There also is some concern, she said, that the old Muehlbach space might be too small to attract a general grocery, that it might be too small to be profitable. The option for a more gourmet-centered store is still open, she said.

"The key is to come up with a concept that will be profitable.

And that is based on who you think the market is going to be," Sherman said. "It is our goal to make it a grocery. But we're not the ones who are going to run it. " Sam Balistreri, a manager of Meiners Sun Fresh in Brookside, said if all goes well, they hope it will be their company occupying the Muehlbach space.

"It's not 100 percent sure yet. They (the company) would have loved to already have been in there but we're hitting a lot of stumbling blocks," he said. "It will be groceries plus a full-line liquor department, plus a full-line deli with the ability to cater.

They really want to do it. " For Baker and others: The sooner, the better.

"It sure would be a blessing," he said.

[kcteen]

I've been to the plaza pantry. Its a new place..more of a convenience store than grocery center. I was in there recently and the owner was moderatley upset that the paper mentioned them as "competition." The plaza pantry didn't sell sandwitches or wine, two of menier's main things, and other stuff that meiners was famous for. The Plaza Pantry has a western union machine, ATM machine, sells snack foods (like a QT) tobbaco products, lottery tickets, some beer/liquor, hot-dogs, etc.

Now that meiner's is closing, he said they would probbaly start carrying a wine selection and may start serving sandwitches. The corner of 48th and Belleview could have outdoor seating..though i'm not sure he's that ambitious yet

On a related note..i've heard a rumor from a developer that a grocery store (or a large, borderline convenience/grocer store) could be in the plans for the "new" Van Tuyls project which would occupy the block between roanoake and belleview (isn't it called the "westside" or something..sorry..can't remember) I've heard that project (a smaller version of last time's attempt which was shot down by the neighborhood) is going through

KcTeen

[GLiddy]

Sorry to see Meiner's leave.

One of the few places that still made the Plaza something other than a surburban mall.
Why not replace it with a Dean and Delucca, and then we can be just like everyone else!!!!

[Good2Great]

Dang it! They had the best Oscar Meiner products!

[carfreekc]

Meiners didn't close after all! They shortened their hours instead.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 451984.htm

"We're streamlining a little bit," Meiners said. "We felt the neighborhood needed it. We had people coming in here crying because we were leaving."

[tat2kc]

WOOHOO! Great news for the plaza.

[Tosspot]

Well they aren't there now.

Now pardon me while I head out for the evening.