Throwback Thursday – from August 2015
A New Shiny Object
TERRE HAUTE (That’s French for “I hope there is enough parking.”) is a town that loves something – anything, that is new. If you want to create a stir in this town just open a new store or restaurant.
“Build it and mail out coupons and they will come.”
— Paraphrase from “Field of Dreams”
Maybe it is because for many years Terre Haute was just an exit off of I-70 – a place where nothing happened. That seemed to have started changing about twenty five years ago. The local colleges began to make headlines as innovative and exciting places. New businesses began to come here and my wife, the lovely and inspiring, Dawn, moved here in the late 1980s and it was, “off to the races!”
(I showed up here about 13 years ago and that put the seal of approval on it.) OK….maybe I’m being a bit facetious there, but I still think I helped.
The town is expanding and new growth is bringing jobs and a sense of mild excitement to this old river town.
If you want to turn that mild excitement into something near to frenzy all you need to do is open a new store or place to eat.
Late last year a “Cheddars” restaurant opened up on the south side of town and you would think it was a branch office of Fatima the way the crowds mobbed the place. Nobody was getting cured and tossing away their crutches there, they were just getting some decent chow.
Last month a new “Five Guys Burgers” opened and if you drive past it yet today you would think that it was the site of a gold strike or the discovery of Jimmy Hoffa’s grave.
And now…
Yesterday was the unofficial official grand opening of a new Meijer mega-store with 195,000 square feet of retail delights. That is one honking big store. The “Official” official grand opening is in a couple of days.
I’ve watched them build it as I was on my way to the Wal-Mart that is squatted directly across the street. What a coincidence!
Can you say “Free Market Competition?” I knew you could.
Both of the stores are on the east side of Terre Haute. Up until less than ten years ago that stretch of road was farm land and an onramp to the Interstate. Now it has turned into the hottest property in the area with these two behemoth stores, a Holiday Inn and more construction going on than this town has seen in years.
(Scuttlebutt has it that one parcel of land has had a building permit issued to “Hooters.” That I find hard to believe. Cracker Barrel maybe, but Hooters? Naw.)
Some people don’t like it when these big stores open up. I have no problems with them at all. Increased competition does two main things:
- It makes existing stores improve the way they do business.
- It makes for lower prices.
New stores also bring jobs. This Meijer store means 270 new jobs according to the morning paper. There isn’t a small town anywhere that wouldn’t welcome that.
It will be a while until I go out there to investigate the new store. Right now the parking lot looks like the world’s largest used car dealership. I figure that after a month or so the glow will have worn off and the crowds will dissipate to a degree and move on to the next new shiny object. By then I’ll be in the market for something or other and I’ll give them the once over.
Until then I think I’ll go out to dinner at Cheddars. It doesn’t seem to be as crowded lately.
Down the Hall on Your Left 
Well…..you named a couple of places I’m familiar with, but not necessarily happy with. You know, some of the new stores that went up in the past couple of years. One is the Meijer store. I braved it one afternoon shortly after they started accepting customers, and I didn’t find them necessarily acceptable as far as prices go. Too high even a year ago, compared to a couple of other well established businesses that handle the same products. I guess if you’re careful enough on what you buy a “good deal” might pop up on occasion while shopping there. Another store is Five Guys. Great food, but read the prices for those sandwiches before ordering. If you’re ordering a cheeseburger, for example, be sure and stipulate a double or a single. If you don’t they serve you with the double, which is over twice as much as a single…..automatically…..and even a single is not cheap. That’s not right. The Cracker Barrel is one of my favorite chow-down places. Great food at reasonable prices. Chedders…..haven’t been in there yet, but family has and I get favorable reports on them. Guess I’ll have to try them one of these days. So, for now I’ll stick to my old standbys, Cracker Barrel and Walmart, for eat-in and take-home.
Another good blog, John. Thanks, again.
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