{"id":26132,"date":"2024-03-25T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T13:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/?p=26132"},"modified":"2024-03-28T20:05:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T20:05:47","slug":"sight-dans-supermarket-inwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/sight-dans-supermarket-inwood\/","title":{"rendered":"SIGHT: Dan’s Supermarket in Inwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gary Then, the general manager of Dan’s Supermarket in Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan, has a couple of mottos: “Consistency is the best way toward progress” and, on a more personal note, “I\u2019m so predictable.” These values are made visible at his two local grocery stores, where cans, bags, and boxes are stacked in immaculate towers, their labels aligned, creating stripes of alternating colors. The aisles’ linoleum floors gleam. Items are blocked to the edge of each shelf and end cap. The “setups,” as Gary calls the displays, are a glory to behold, on an otherwise unassuming stretch of Sherman Avenue just north of Dyckman Street (the second store is smaller and a few blocks north, on 207th Street). On the afternoon of our meeting, as I waited on the sidewalk I watched a worker preparing 2.5-gallon yellow jugs of Mazola corn oil for display. Before placing each jug on the stack, he wiped each jugs with a soft cloth, then nestled the bottle into its spot in the row, creating a stripe of bright yellow beneath the steppes of cans above, with a transitional row of yellow powedered iced tea. True to his precepts, Gary appeared at 2 p.m. on the dot, a young man with a neat scruff of beard, and wearing a black beanie and a windbreaker emblazoned with the Dan’s logo.<\/p>\n

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Dan’s Supermarket was founded in 2008 by Gary’s father, Julio. The meticulous displays and organization for which the store has become known were Julio’s vision. As Gary explains, 80 percent of the store’s customers are Dominican, and in Hispanic culture, abundance is valued: plenty of food, music, people, and so on. “We want to show people’s there’s a lot<\/em>,” Gary says, gesturing toward the panoramic setup. He explains that “Dan” is not actually a person’s name but the Spanish word for “give”: Dan’s Supermarket is “giving” the temptation of plenitude to its shoppers. When they see the towers of groceries, they want to grab them, and more and more, and this opportunity makes them happy.<\/p>\n

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Gary Then, general manager of Dan’s, by his favorite section of the store<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sidewalk display is so tall that to reach the top, workers have to literally climb the levels of cans, using them as steps. As Gary tells me, items with the most distant expiration dates are stacked higher, while those expiring soonest are at eye level, so they are purchased first; the products gradually move down the stack, and missing spots are quickly filled in, like bricks in a wall, to create a smooth face. The alternating different colors are to prevent a customer from grabbing the wrong item. If you place cans of crushed tomatoes next to cans of whole plum tomatoes, a customer might take the wrong item, leading to frustration. He wants to eliminate this uncertainty, and of course the stripes of yellow, red, blue, and green are pleasing to the eye. The setup on the sidewalk features the store’s most high-volume items, and there are always a few workers waiting in the wings to tidy things up in the shoppers’ wake. Here’s a worker replacing cans of Caf\u00e9 Bustelo.<\/p>\n

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Inside the store, consistency continues to reign. The fruit is packaged in geometrical arrangements on Styrofoam trays.<\/p>\n