Foodmaster: An Obituary

The Somerville population was recently dealt a crippling blow with the news that the beloved Johnnie’s Foodmaster would soon be closing. Foodmaster was more than just a grocery store. It was a place for the community to come together. A cool, safe place for children to hang out at after school instead of experimenting with drugs. A place where 79 Ossipee guys could buy cheap alcohol and take it home to experiment with.

Foodmaster was the diamond in the rough of area grocery stores. It didn’t pretend to be better than it was, like Shaw’s. It didn’t try to solicit me with Hawaiian shirts and admittedly delicious free samples, like Trader Joe’s. And it certainly didn’t convince me to eat weird organic shit, like Whole Foods (No thanks, the only chia seeds I’ll be buying are gonna be filling in bald spots on my Elmer Fudd Chia Pet).

Foodmaster gave me exactly what I expected from a grocery store located just feet from the Projects. Cheap-ass food. More cheap-ass food. Lottery kiosk all up in your face as you walk in. 4:1 knockoff brand to real brand ratio. Refrigerated meats. They had it all.

The organization was a class act. These employees lived and breathed Foodmaster. Unworldly commitment. Never before have I seen grocery-baggers who would follow you out to your car to make sure that you didn’t steal the shopping cart (Yo, chill, I need this for the hurricane). They also weren’t hesitant to put you in your goddamn place if you wasted their time. If you bothered them with a stupid question like “where is the brown sugar”, damn right they’d either respond with a random aisle number between 1 and 12 or direct your ass to the baby-care section.

Last week, I returned one last time to pay my respects. I entered Foodmaster that day with a few bucks and a heavy heart. I left with some 50%-off whoopie pies. But more importantly, I left frightened of the future. Like the baby fox, Todd, in The Fox and the Hound when his mother dies and he is left alone. An orphan in a frightening world. Foodmaster, you had my heart when your ‘D’ light lost power and you became Foomaster for like 7 months until they fixed it. Damn, I’m gonna miss you when your lights go out for good.