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The Kwik-E-Mart Goes Solo
While driving from Audio Systems to Scholtz's last Wednesday, I found myself waiting at the Koenig and N. Lamar intersection and noticed that yet another 7-Eleven had been decomissioned. Two things occured to me in rapid succession. First was that this store was unique in that it was abandoned and had not yet been converted to an independent food mart just like all the others. Second, and more far-reaching, was that I was witnessing a reversal of the decades-long trend of big business smothering small enterprise: once a mainstay of many an American corner, the corporate 7-Eleven has faded from ubiquity and has been replaced by a grab bag of quirky upstarts.
Among other things, one of the more entertaining aspects of this transformation has been watching the new independents trying to save money on sign costs by modifying the old 7-Eleven logo for use as their own. It turns out that a "7" can be extended, truncated, crossed out, or painted over in myriad creative ways and that the word "Eleven" is about the same length of many substitute catchy words. Add to these possible contortions the fact that most of these stores are owned by Koreans with a sketchy grasp of English and you have a collection of signs that are themselves worthy of a driving tour.
So we have the old 45th and Airport 7-Eleven location, now named "1st Evening," created by a not-so-subtle whitewash of the arm of the "7" and a rework of the nested "Eleven." A few blocks down Airport, on 51st, sits the decidedly less original "7 Days" food mart, merely advertising week-round operation with a sadly drab repaint job. And North and South Austin boast their very own "4 Seasons" and "9 Lives" stores, respectively.
The trend has extended to Stop-N-Go, whose famously rank 45th and Duvall location was once the place to go to overhear spicy Mamet-style dialog between patrons and management. I think it's rebadged "Stop N Shop" or something similarly derivative (I was in a hurry, so I didn't go inside to check the inhabitant's speech patterns). And then there's the long-deceased Quickie-Pickie chain, whose signature Armadillo signs once provided hours of free-association power for many a weary magnet-school bus-rider.
You might think this would serve as an example to the likes of Wherehouse and Borders, who would otherwise argue for the superiority of their economies of scale in the face of Waterloo Records and BookPeople. Or maybe the financials of the foodmart industry just don't apply to their lines of business. For example, one major advantage of being a large retail outlet is lost on convenience stores: selection. No matter how hard you try, there are only so many kinds of cigarettes and soda and peanuts you can squeeze into 600 square feet of space. Unlike Walmart versus the local hardware store, there's little reason for a customer to shop at a 7-Eleven instead of "First Evening."
Well, unless you're after specific branded merchandise exclusively available from a major chain. I, for one, don't miss the Slurpee or Double Gulp (64 oz = 1/2 gallon = too much fucking soda). Kids may now have to walk a few extra blocks to get their icy, syrupy beverages but they probably need the exercise anyway.
From all this I'm not sure what to conclude, except that, in its own small way, Austin's evolving Quick-E-Mart scene is helping keep the city beautifully weird and independent. The best part of it all is that it doesn't even seem to require a conscious community effort. There have been no petitions signed, no city council ordinances, no gasoline boycotts or white powdered donut hunger strikes. In ten years, the corporate chains have failed and given way to the fiercely independent Korean, and all we've had to do is sit back and laugh at the absurd names they give their stores.
So go ahead, buy some cigs and fill that plain white styrofoam cup with slightly bitter coffee. Grab a bag of Tom's snacks. Stock your next party with beer from the cool case. And hug that small Korean woman behind the counter. Like you, she's part of the movement to take back our channels of commerce from The Man. We're all in this together and our reward is the quirky weirdness we all crave.
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