I’ve had a couple of posts and comments in recent days about changing retail habits — regular reader and Amy’s Aunt Joyce, like me, prefers to go into the store to see what’s on offer — so this article in the London Guardian caught my eye. Rather than being about empty/changing retail spaces, it’s about the impact on retail workers when their jobs are lost. We hear a lot about the decline of manufacturing jobs, but less about what happens to people who worked in places like Woolworth’s and were part of the walk-in shopping community in many small towns. Their stories are worth reading.
Oddly enough the stories made me think not of a chain store, but of The Sampler in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Before Ocean Grove became trendy and expensive, it was — still is — a Methodist camp community where the genteel threadbare could find inexpensive lodging and cheap, homestyle food at a cafeteria a few blocks from the beach. The Sampler was literally a cafeteria, a place where you pushed your tray along while you looked at the vast array of steam table food and asked for what you wanted. The servers who plated your requests had worked there forever. The food was nothing fancy — ham with raisin sauce, turkey with stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes — but it was inexpensive and for steam table food, good. People ate at long tables, and of course there were regulars. My family rented a $35 a week bungalow in Bradley Beach, just over the town line, so we went to The Sampler on the rare occasions when we ate out. My sister Linda like the stewed tomatoes. I mean, who eats stewed tomatoes any more? The place was packed at 5pm, because the genteel elderly ate early. But at The Sampler, they ate at a long table with others, and they didn’t eat alone.
https://derelictbuildingsdotnet.wordpress.com/the-sampler-inn-story/
The Sampler’s owners declared bankruptcy in 2006, and the place was torn down in 2009. I remember going one last time, probably in the early 1980’s. My mother, who died in 2007, loved the place. Ahead of me was an elderly lady who had a bowl of soup, a glass of iced tea, and a slice of white bread with two pats of butter. The butter, as I recall, was 5 cents a pat. When her food was rung up, the lady was ten cents short, and she went to put the butter back. I asked if I could give her the dime — I still carried coins at that point — and she nodded without speaking, eyes averted. She took her tray and went off to her favorite seat by the big front windows.
I doubt people like her can afford to live in Ocean Grove today. There are lots of trendy restaurants where people sit at their own tables and order interesting, made to order food. Even taking into account inflation, absolutely nothing can be had for the current equivalent of a dime.
Pam Klainer's Day 
I’m with Linda – I still like stewed tomatoes! You can buy them in a can, with good seasonings. Still prefer shopping in stores too.
for Phyllis: I know they are still available; glad to hear you eat them! No idea if The Sampler version was home made, or canned dumped in the steam table.