The newest and shiniest jewel in the crown of the ambitious Mexican supermarket giant, La Comer, opened on the north side of Guadalajara in November.
The new store, with its English name, City Market, is said to represent an investment of 200 million pesos (over 10 million U.S. dollars) and is La Comer’s eighth store in Mexico. La Comer, parent company of City Market, Fresko and Mega, aims at relatively high-income shoppers and at offering a wide range of high-quality food, some of it imported or organic. City Market, as the name suggests, is considered a luxury store focusing on large or touristic cities.
While driving past Avenidas Américas and Patria one evening in December, I perked up at seeing the unfamiliar City Market sign and, under it, sophisticated lighting and window cafe seating, instead of what used to be the grim cement facade of a Soriana, which I chiefly remembered for its scary traffic patterns and abysmal pedestrian access.
“City Market is like Whole Foods,” my American friend said as we sped past that night. This further perked me up, since I always loved Whole Foods.
Whole Foods has its detractors and I don’t always disagree with them. And since its 2017 buyout by Amazon (considered one of the worst places to work), Whole Foods (considered one of the best) must be in a state of flux. However, it is undeniable that, starting in the 1980s and 90s, it changed the face of U.S. supermarkets for the better.
Would City Market do the same to Mexico, I wondered? When I finally checked it out last week, I was ga-ga from the moment I leaped off the bus and made my way storeward. No more hunting for the entrance after edging along forbidding driveways into God-forsaken parking lots where cars careened around corners. Instead, I sashayed along vegetation-lined pedestrian walkways into the store’s beckoning entrance where almost friendly security guards stood at attention. I sauntered past a bank of checkouts, where customers in short lines seemed content.
Inside, I found that not everything at City Market is like Whole Foods (and it is perhaps unfair to make the comparison). But a lot of it was—the lighting and color, the fun atmosphere, the juice and coffee bars, the prepared foods section, the fruit and vegetable section (except that organics were not as abundant), the meat section (again, fewer organics) and the very helpful and abundant staff.
A Russian acquaintance goes to City Market for the heavy, dark, Russian-style bread she can only find there. A friend who lived in Italy loves the gelateria (Italian gelato) bar, especially the Italian Opera flavor, and raves about the rotisserie chicken in the prepared foods area.
In many respects, City Market is similar to Fresko, which already boasts three stores in Guadalajara, opened over the last few years. But in sheer size — almost 3,500 square meters — and in the selection of food, drink and kitchenware, City Market far exceeds the Fresko I visited.
In addition, its wine section is the largest I’ve seen. City Market boasts that its “cava” (wine cellar) has 2,000 “referencias” of the best liquor and wine from around the world, and a Mexican friend who frequently visits vineyards in California and Baja California (Valle de Guadalupe) testifies that it has an excellent selection of national wines. (He noted that his favorites are blends of tempranillo grapes, especially from Adobe and San Tomas).
City Market workers, like their brethren at Whole Foods, all but get down on their knees to customers in search of something. When I asked for “pepitas de calabasa” (pumpkin seeds), I was happily assisted but, unfortunately, the first staffer said they were sold out, while three others, after conferring with compadres, found three different presentations of pumpkin seeds in three different spots. So while the spirit is willing, the knowledge and perhaps organization can be weak.
A surprising number of City Market staff speak great English and used it with me, even though I spoke to them in Spanish — although nobody would mistake me for a native speaker. Even more surprising on the fringes of Guadalajara were the number of customers speaking English. The store is near the swanky Colonia Seattle, founded by Americans, but that doesn’t seem to explain from whence came all the Anglo customers.
Not as good as one might hope is the store’s ingredient labeling, although it seemed the same as other Mexican supermarkets. Whole Foods prepared foods are meticulously labeled, but when I took home some tasty roasted tomato pasta from City Market, I had no idea which oil was so plentifully used in it — a big deal for health aficionados.
It was also disappointing that instead of an excellent vitamin and supplement section with knowledgable staff, City Market has a smallish “farmacia” with an unspectacular selection.
A pillar of Whole Foods is the bulk section where you measure and weigh grains, nuts and the like. (This section is Whole Foods’ retort to accusations it is high priced.) While City Market does have a very good selection of such food, it is prepackaged, which brings me to another matter: plastic containers.
Thankfully, City Market bucks Guadalajara’s passionate embrace of styrofoam dishes for food service. (Styrofoam, after all, is an environmentalist’s Great Satan — it is the most carcinogenic of all “plastics,” not recyclable, and ends up inside the many fish and seabirds it kills.) But still, City Market does use a lot of plastic containers and very few more environmentally friendly materials, such as carton.
On balance, however, City Market fulfilled my high expectations and, while it didn’t fill Whole Foods’ big shoes, it is nevertheless a jewel of a market. With its high quality food and kitchenware (incidentally, you won’t find clothes or electronics there), its free parking and location along the someday-to-be-completed arm of the tren ligero, City Market is indeed poised to lead a giant step forward for Mexican-owned supermarkets.
City Market Plaza Patria, Avenida Patria 1950 at Américas. See citymarket.com.mx, (33) 1781-1958. Open 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.