When I first came to Chapel Hill five years ago, the seniors brought me to the small grocery store in Durham.
They told me I can buy the majority of the necessities for Asian dishes here.
If I want to buy more varieties of cookies or snacks, I can go to Grand Asian market, where they also provid the very delicious buns and hot meals.
The buns, Taiwanese bread, and hot dishes are the major inducement for me to drive ~40 mins to Raleigh once a month.
Although there is another Korean market nearby small Asian market, the price is really not friendly to students. That's the reason the small Asian market can happily survive for so many years because we need it.
Now nearby the small Asian market, there is a newly open Asian market occupied the location of previous bankrupt Circuit City.
You can imagine how big this grocery store is.
I won't say anything bad about this new grocery store since it just started its business. A lot of hardware and software of the grocery store needs to be improved.
But the existence of this market already crashes the business of small Asian market.
Of course this also depends on if the new Asian market can improve its service in the future.
But today when I went to the small Asian market (because my friend wants the German bread, which is provided next to the market), the cashier seems desperate.
They were chatting about buying the lottery in the hope of getting the prize since they envision that they might be out of business soon.
(But they also try to give more discounts to survive, which is good to customers.)
This reminds me the scene in the movie (You've got mail), where the local bookstore was forced to close when the enterprise bookstore (I don't remember the name but something similar to Borders) entered the business.
(However, the Borders in Durham is also going to close probably because the competition with the internet bookstore like Amazon)
I wonder the consequence since both of them have things to improve. But I am glad I can buy things with 10% discount and 20% discount next time (this month, hopefully longer time) and without the obnoxious smell in the new Asian market.
Honestly, I don't feel the vegetables in the New Asian market look fresh. But it has meat and seafood booth. This is a big plus if the products are fresh.
ReplyDeleteThe small Asian market still has things that are not available in the new Asian market (e.g., stinking tofu)