Growing up on the economically depressed South Side of Chicago, my family was used to driving to other neighborhoods to get to a “good” grocery store.
Our definition of “good” applied to the full-service stores that white neighborhoods had access to, with a large variety of fresh meats and produce, sometimes up to 45 minutes away by car.
But my poorer community always had at least one neighborhood grocer that was decent, if not comparable to the preferred stores, and had the basic items that suited our needs. The fruits and meats usually were near the expiration date, but if you were out of milk, running a couple of blocks up the street was convenient…