I had dreaded it for months: the closure of the big Waitrose near my flat – my one-stop shop for consumerist and foodie therapy: staples, experimental and impulsive buys, and booze.
It reopened while I was back visiting my parents in the US, and I fielded a steady stream of questions from friends who had been and wondered what I might think.
Finally, on my return to London last week, I went. I already missed the slightly old-fashioned, fusty look of the old one which still retained some of that Waitroseness that infused the shops I visited with my grandma in northernmost London in the 1990s.
But the Waitrose of the past, bits of which had clung on, seems to have finally gone for good.
The refurb has landed customers with little more than pointless displays (the old boxes of Essential Salad in posh Hot Food stands, an unwholesome fridge of to-go beers where there used to be sandwiches, and something claiming to be a “Parmesan Bar” which is just a few wicker baskets containing the cheese).
The main change as far as I can tell is that everything has been put in the reverse order – so now I have to walk the whole length of the shop for apples or milk.
Shop signage tries to bamboozle you into buying organic, and makes basics like mushrooms and courgettes almost impossible to find. There are vast seas of new self-checkout tills which, like the old ones, are chronically faulty. Most have been closed on my four visits so far.
Shoppers who value familiarity will find the place aggressively disorientating. My green-and-beige-tinted spectacles have slipped and now I see, with great sadness, that trusty Waitrose is no longer what it was; it’s reduced to mere hollow marketing, a simulacrum of quality – and the loyal shoppers of old are paying the price.