A Sign of These Times from Balducci's

[Stinky The Clown]

Balducci's, the upscale NY grocer recently bought the Sutton Place Gourmet chain in the DC area. I just heard a commercial for them on DC's WTOP Newsradio 1500.

......background noise of clattering computer keys as if a copy writer is typing .........

" ..... and we have fresh turkeys. Also for the holidays, we have great French ......... um ........ make that "imported" brie ......."

Hey Balducci's .... fuck you!

[crispini]

1. Don't you think...

they were being funny? Reading it, that's how it strikes me.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. That may be, but it isn't how *I* heard it, but then .........

I am one angry, pissed off, out of sorts person. Maybe hypersensitive. It could well be ......

[alfredo]

5. I agree that it was an attempt at humor.

It poked fun at the French -phobic.

[pnutchuck]

7. I don't know about funny....

Yes, they probably thought themselves quite humorous for their remark, but aren't mysogenistic, and racist jokes said with the same humor? Tongue in cheek and all the while promoting the sentiment of hate.

[Stephanie]

3. Correction - Sutton Place bought Balducci's, not vice versa

And they ruined the original Balducci's on Sixth Avenue, closed it, and now they are just exploiting the name. The REAL Balducci's is sadly missed.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Hear, hear!

[pnutchuck]

4. How stupid!

I live in Paris and find that insulting. The French aren't excluding American products based on political views. They still love America, and some Americans. After the election, they started questioning our intelligence, but who could blame them?

[JHB]

8. Balducci's isn't Balducci's anymore

They're just another corporation trading on the family name:
http://www.refresher.com/!98pt6.html

Everyone in New York seems to have an opinion about why Balducci's closed its Greenwich Village doors. The white paper covering the landmark grocer's windows might have shrouded the corpse, but that didn't stop anyone from talking ill of the dead. "That's what happens when you sell out to a big, fat corporation," opined one local store owner. "It was all over the minute Mama Balducci stopped walking the aisles," said another. Greedy landlords, the Republican administration, labor unions and Walmart were variously invoked as perpetrators of the crime. Yet not one of the locals or the local 'experts' seemed to suspect that Balducci's was actually a victim of the dot com revolution.

Two years ago, when the Industry Standard was flying off the newstands and online businesses were being founded before their business plans were twinkles in their founder's eye, Balducci's was purchased by Sutton Place Gourmet. Managed by a group of bankers, they also purchased Hay Day Farm Market and had eyes for the french gourmet brand, Fauchon, among others. They had a vision of a large gourmet conglomerate and had decided to use the brand name Balducci's under which all the others would be housed. But then to add just the right panache for the times, they had decided to name it 'Balducci's.com.'
----
There are certainly many reasons for the demise of Balducci's on 6th Avenue. But one of them is clearly that a bunch of guys who spent their days buying and selling didn't understand the brand they had bought. Anyone who could ever, even for a moment, entertain the notion of '.com' following 'Balducci's' would have no problem recommending the creation of an automatic transmission Ferrari. They just didn't get it.

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[Minstrel Boy]

15. Damn - Balducci's is gone from 6th Avenue?

And again I say, damn.

It's been too long since I was in NYC.

[JeffInRick]

9. Sutton Place

I used to love Sutton Place. It was my ideal for gourmet when I lived back east.
Too bad it's been eaten up by corp hogs.

[candy]

10. Good Lord,lighten up. n/t

[lynintenn]

11. I love french Cheese and French wines

French food is the best in the world.

[Bluebear]

12. There's a car dealer in Portsmouth NH that advertised....

they would take care of all your driving needs, "even if you're a Democrat". It was a Dim-Son imitator speaking and I failed to see the humor in it, but what do I know.

[The empressof all]

13. How very sad

I didn't know Balducci's was gone. Haven't lived in NYC for years. Are McSorleys and Zabars still there?

An end to an era....

[Stephanie]

14. McSorley's and Zabar's are going strong

Have no fear. Balducci's got in trouble because of a family dispute of some kind - it fell to the siblings and they squabbled and broke it up and now it's gone.