- Shareholders vote to dissolve co-op Sun-Times
- Vote authorizes co-op’s sale to U of Chicago HP Progress
- Condo developers feel foreclosure squeeze Crain’s
- Oak Park petition drive fails to stop tax Trib
- Retail rehab planned for historic corridor Trib
- Wine shop opens amid South Loop growth Trib
- Village questions airport land purchase Trib
- Grayslake Museum to double in size Trib
- New development gets tax break Southtown Star
- Panel OKs Evanston high-rise Crain’s
- Kane County to fight blight Trib
- Residents return to completed complex Southtown Star
- New map spurs development Southtown Star
- Daley urges speedy foreclosure notice Chicago Defender
- Greenspan’s mortgage solution AP (via Sun-Times)
RIP Hyde Park Co-op. You were a wonderful part of the community and the city; one of the best grocery stores in town. Too bad you over-reached, with disastrous results. Hope Jewel can take over and bring first-rate grocery service back to the neighborhood.
Ugh–the Co-op hasn’t been a wonderful part of the community in 25 years. It was dirty, overpriced, badly run and depressing. Let’s hear it for a Dominick’s in HP! That might be just the thing to turn HP livable!
25 years? Really? I shopped there during the 1990s heyday, when they expanded and upgraded the main store with much fanfare, brought in extra services such as Let Them Eat Cake pastries, etc. I always found the Co=op to be on a par with Treasure Island in terms of quality and service. It greatly saddens me to hear of what happened to it after “jumping the shark” with the 47th St. expansion.
I shopped there all through the 90s too and it was great. I can’t believe people believed the university’s lies about being in talks with other stores; ever been in a Treasure Island lately – the two I used to frequent are dumps. Dominick’s aren’t much better – and I can’t imagine that the neighborhood would allow the university to build a larger store somewhere which is what a Dominicks would want.
Maybe I exaggerate, and maybe my memories of the Co-op in the nineties is distorted–but only maybe. As a student at U of C in the late nineties, we all complained about how overpriced the Co-op was, how limited the selection, and how frequently poor the inventory was (rotten fruit, almost-expired products, etc.) Eventually, once a month, a friend and I would trek out to the Northside for real grocery shopping, using the Co-op only as absolutely necessary.
I think those are imagined “I’d rather live up north” beliefs. You obviously have never seen a Dominick’s with moldy produce or leaking ceilings (and this is a NEW store in a very similar neighborhood to HP). The co-op’s house brands were and are ALWAYS far cheaper than any of the national chains thanks to being part of Certified. Treasure Island has the same advantage, unfortunately, they have been squeezed by the big stores too and have gone drastically downhill.
Let me guess–you voted for Option B?
Wow – every time I hear about bad produce being sold at the Co-op I am amazed! Again, during the time I lived there the fruits and vegetables were awesome, and the clerks would weigh and price them “on the spot” just like at Treasure Island. Their deli section had a fine array of meats, cheeses,prepared foods and sides(though I never liked any of their pasta salads). But what was really unique and great about the Co-op was that they did indeed listen to their customers, and if you suggested that they carry a certain product that you saw in another store, they’d order a small quantity and test-market it. If you and others bought enough of it, they’d add it to their product line. Maybe that was the real problem…maybe they were just TOO nice for our modern world.