"It's not like going to Sentry," Regent Food Market proprietor Joe Heggestad tells contributing editor George Vukelich in the Listening In column. "The place is an anachronism. It's pretty much the way it used to be. I put in some new coolers, but it still has a tin ceiling. The store isn't for everyone.... Some people just don't have the patience to deal with it. It's very hard to shop the little store and not talk to someone, no matter where you are - the meat counter, the produce section. You always have to go through aisles and say: 'Excuse me. Could you hand me that item there since you're standing in front of it?'... The big reason the store is like it is - a jumble - is because almost everything we carry has been suggested by the customers.... We have a mix of customers because we're in a mixed neighborhood - old people, young people, university students, families...." Heggestad retires in 1995, but remains a neighborhood resident. The store re-opens in 1998 as the Regent Market Co-op.
Retro grocery
From the Isthmus archives, Nov. 4, 1988