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A few weeks ago we took our family of four to a birthday party at Stew Leonard’s in Yonkers, New York. This was the first time I had visited this hyper-regional, highly beloved grocery chain.

My wife had fond memories of this catch-all superstore from her own childhood. She was far from the only one who spoke about Stew Leonard’s with awe and reverence. Based on the many descriptions I gathered over the years, I imagined a farm-themed Costco that was also an NYC-area take on a county fair.

It very much sounded like a place I would like. Decent deals and quality prepared foods are, as modern parlance might declare, two of my love languages.

But I remained skeptical.

Typically when things are hyped up this much, I find them unable to meet the sky-high bar that’s been set. I mentioned this phenomenon in a previous post while trying to watch the show Ted Lasso, which I’m sure I would have really enjoyed if I went in with a more neutral attitude. I find the same to be true of restaurants, books, or really any experience. (Apparently, this all has a name: Expectation-Confirmation Theory).

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We arrived at Stew Leonard’s on a Sunday morning at about 9:45. The birthday party didn’t start until 10:30, but with our younger daughter (12 months old) on a new one-nap schedule, we couldn’t push the ~25 minute drive any later. If we did, younger daughter would have fallen asleep in the car, throwing off our entire day.

So we needed to kill some time. Luckily, we were in a place designed to do exactly that.

We walked in to the intoxicating smell of fresh doughnuts, with a doughnut machine in plain sight. From there it only got better. We passed soft-serve ice cream, a fresh mozzarella station, a million-and-one amazing looking prepared foods, and a Mariachi band. The smell of fresh popcorn emanated from some unknown location.

Embedded in all of this was a thoughtfully designed grocery store shopping experience. Instead of the typical layout that encourages the customer to flit about between sections, this was more like a narrative-driven amusement park ride. There is one primary route in which one is intended to move about the store, constructed in a manner that seamlessly merged necessity and entertainment. You shop, you explore, you enjoy the show.

By far, the highlight for both of our girls were the animatronics. All around the store we encountered singing farm animals, milk, and fruit.

Older daughter (2.5 years old) was completely enamored by these one-of-a-kind performances. She ended up having a great time at the pizza-making birthday party we attended, but she could have watched the crooning chickens for hours. Based on younger daughter’s constant hoots of delight upon watching the Avocado Girls, she also mightily approved.

OK, so I had a good time at Stew Leonard’s. But what am I getting at with all of this?

Many of you may know the famous “This is Water” speech by the late writer David Foster Wallace, which he gave at Kenyon College in 2005. The speech is mostly about learning how to cope with the slog of adult existence, and how our “natural default setting” is typically to be annoyed and frustrated when dealing with the mundane routines of life. He argues that stepping out of this mode requires constant conscious intention.

In the address, he specifically talks about the annoyances of going to the grocery store. I’ve copied a section below:

“But then you remember there's no food at home-you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job-and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out. You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.”

(This video contains is an abridged version, here’s a full text version of the speech from the Kenyon College website)

Watching both of my girls mesmerized by this one-of-a-kind shopping excursion, I thought of this speech. It occurred to me that the Stew Leonard’s experience offers a refreshing antidote to what Wallace calls our “natural default setting”.

Even though Stew Leonard’s very much lives in the world of day-to-day slog—the one with rude drivers, crowded parking lots, texting dullards blocking the sidewalk, and blueberries that are for some reason $13—it strives to surmount the “default state” by creating something magical amidst the onslaught of never-ending bullshit.

What I found particularly fascinating is that Stew Leonard’s actively gives you this choice constantly. If you look with one perspective, Stew Leonard’s a hectic and overstimulating crazy-land, with sweaty shoppers and quasi-deals that used to be way better. But you look at it another way, it’s actually the everyday version of being in Disneyland.

The thing about adults is that we don’t start out rude, frustrated, and annoyed. We begin as wide-eyed children, taking it all in. It was nice to feel that again, even if only temporarily.

It was especially nice to feel it as a family.

Parenting-adjacent read of the week: The Great Filter | Nick Magiulli | Of Dollars and Data

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Thumbnail image credit to this video from Ray Out There

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