Today is the last day for Genuardi’s on Boot Road in West Chester.  At 6 p.m. this evening, the doors close for good as a Genuardi’s, and the conversion to Giant begins.

On June 15th, the Federal Trade Commission finally approved the sale of the 15 Genuardi’s stores to Giant.

But if we are honest with ourselves, the Genuardi’s Markets stopped being Genuardi’s when the family sold to Safeway in a transaction that was finalized in 2001.

The Boot Road store was truthfully, in my opinion, the best of the bunch.  I had mostly used the Wynnewood and St. David’s stores before, and St. David’s seemed to have issues being in a building that was rumored to have issues (you could see marks on the ceilings like there were roof leaks and stuff), and the customer service people and other staff weren’t especially helpful in a consistent way.  And the Wynnewood store ?  Well Wynnewood had haphazard service at best and that store was even more dirty than the Wynnewood Superfresh. And the parking lot in Wynnewood is a disaster. But if you live in Lower Merion, you might not notice all the potholes and surface issues in the lot because so many streets have the same issues around there.

I went to the store on Boot Road yesterday to pick up a couple of things and found the store mostly emptied out.  As per employees, the store hopes to re-open as a Giant on July 8th. It was so weird to be in an almost empty store.

One amusing thing I would like to share about being in Genuardi’s yesterday has nothing to do with the conversion.  It has to do with a pet peeve of mine – people having huge cell phone conversations loudly while shopping.

Yesterday, this chick saunters into what was left of frozen food with her cell phone on speaker and held out in her palm – à la Bravo Real Housewives of Anything.

It was one of those “I saw your man and let me tell you” conversations. It reminded me of that cell phone conversation on the commercial where the woman in the mall parking lot at first thinks the Rolls Royce is her car.  I feel bad for whomever was on the other end of that conversation as quite a few people heard most of the conversation before phone girl took it off speaker.  Definitely not a conversation you want random people to overhear, and we’ll leave it at that.

Keep cool today people!  And remember to go help East Goshen Farmers’ Market celebrate their 1st birthday this afternoon.