Metropolitan Market

Metropolitan Market
Category: Grocery
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Update - 3/15/2012
Good-bye, Metropolitan Market.

For some weeks now it has been announced that the upper Queen Anne Metropolitan market will be coming in a few months.

Another blow to the Queen Anne neighborhood. Another concession to developers. Who, by the way, does the neighborhood belong to, decades-long residents or "deep-pockets developers?"

No one was ever asked what they wanted or needed.

While the rest of the Avenue underwent vulgar "urban renewal"--ugly, anonymous blocks of brick and glass for the nouveau riche--, Metropolitan Market maintained a sense of normalcy, quality, and commonsense.

The charm of Queen Anne, Madison Valley, Madison Park, Ballard Avenue, Market Street, 15th Avenue E./19th Avenue E. on Capitol Hill, or Ravenna (65th St.) were their scale and the uniqueness of their shops.

The staff of Metropolitan Market have been on every occasion I can think of unfailingly polite and friendly, even under pressure. The pint-sized nursery and floral department were a delight. The store itself was at a human scale. You could find whatever you needed, and what MM carried was of quality. Prices granted were not always the lowest you could find, but there was a weekly flyer.

I don't think I will be the only way to feel sad about its imminent closure and replacement by another grotesquely over-sized multistory commercial building.

That's lip-service to "sustainability," Seattle. Who needs more of this--especially in their own neighborhood?

In hard economic times, the changing facade of Queen Anne Avenue goes on, unfortunately, in oblivious, non-stop, self-congratulatory fashion. Profitable but devoid of charm.

"That's progress." Yes, in the way that the razing of the Seatte Public Market, would have been. Knocking things down simply for the sake of the bigger, the newer, the more indecently profitable seems to have been built into the very genes of this city.

Ready to raze the rest of W. Highland Drive ("Queen Anne Boulevard")--after the historic Black House was demolished and left a gaping hole in the ground for four years before construction of townhouses began?

Seattle says: What's good for real estate developers is always good for the City. Let Paul Allen, his cronies, and downtown rule!
Edit Remove
People thought this was:Useful (1)Cool (1)
1 Previous Review: Hide »
5/8/2007
I have always been pleasantly impressed by the relaxed, friendly staff at this store. (even when I've come here to pick up some leafy green trimmings for my guinea pig, in the past).

Basically everything you need (in other words, a nice selection), prices maybe a little higher than elsewhere...one's not overwhelmed by a dozen choices of something pretty rudimentary. No interminable aisles (think of the Harvard Market QFC) a block long.

You can actually find things here without spending 5-10 minutes looking for just one item.

I am always surprised that places like this treat you as a human being, while expensive veterinarian offices (for whatever reason) make it ever so clear that they are a business and only a business ("and would you please either make an office appointment or leave" attitude). I attribute that to a propensity on the part of many owners of vet clinics to want to be on a par with whom they judge to be their peers in the bio-tech and information technology fields, i.e., get into the country club.

Though the new Safeway next door is glitzier in some ways, this store is much more on a human scale. That Safeway is still an airplane-hangar (in conception and scale), efficient, friendly, but one feels like one is on a conveyor belt as soon as one steps in. No desire absolutely to do anything but get in, get one's stuff, and get out as soon as possible--unless you're the kind of person who finds wandering around/shopping in an airport a gratifying experience). The Big S with its inside face-lift is big, cold, and impersonal (the staff are pretty nice though).

Actually, the Metropolitan Market (former Larry's Market) down the hill is much clunkier than this one--cavernous in comparison.

Am adamantly opposed to building a 6-story QFC (with apartments above). Why don't they tear down the tick-tacky 7-11 down the street instead?

From the NYT (May 6, 2007) by Craig Smith :

"Yes, life ([in France] is expensive: a web of protectionist regulations has kept a lid on the ability to save money at discount stores and restaurant chains. But that has also kept neighborhood bistros and bakers and cheese shops and charcuteries in business far longer than in most other developed economies, creating a rich fabric of daily life that everyone loves. It is one reason France draws more tourists than any other country each year."

Edit Remove
People thought this was: