Thursday, December 06, 2007

Goodrich Shoprite - grocery, gourmet, boutique, convenience mart.

Goodrich Shoprite, at the corner of Trowbridge and Harrison near the train station, is one of the oldest grocery stores in the area, and probably the best. You could call it a "boutique." They're a regular grocery store, but they also have fine wines (they are the best place in town to get wine or beer), an excellent cheese and meats counter, unusual brands of nearly everything, plus toys, dishes, gifts. They carry their own baked goods (great donuts!) plus a variety of premium baked goods, like Zingerman's breads....

Not that they are a big store. Far from it. They're just a litte neighborhood store.

What they have is a buyer with taste and a sense of the cosmopolitan neighborhood. They are located right next to campus, and north of them is the "Flower Pot" (an old neighborhood of professors and the like with streets named after flowers) and Spartan Village to the south (student housing that serves a lot of foreign students and graduate students). Plus it's right at the on ramp to the freeways, so that alumni and others coming to MSU find it convenient.

I am a great fan of Meijers (hate Walmart, love Meijers, which is still family owned and has a great company mission of being both thrifty and "your everything place") but Goodrich is an amazing mini-Meijers with personality. The only downside of Goodrich is that you can't get near the Trowbridge area on a football saturday. So be aware of the schedule of major sporting events when you go there. (If you must go there on a football saturday, the best time can be during the game, actually.)

Goodrich Shoprite, 940 Trowbridge Road, East Lansing, (517) 351-5760

2 comments:

Erich Z said...

Love Goodrich's. Just about any of the specialty hams will perk me up from the doldrums. Mmm, Schinkenspec....

Pitchlady said...

Hams...cheeses.... Just about any section of that store has a great selection of something really special. I keep thinking "Oh, I should have written more about the butcher counter...or about the Middleeastern breads...or about the olives...or about...."