Cub Foods is the Waffle House of Grocery Stores
Me at Cub, 11:30pm on a Tuesday
Grocery stores these days suck. Every single new place that's opening up or getting remodeled has to have its own gimmick or style, it always rubs me the wrong way. If you go to a Hy-Vee, they have all of the take out food spots or a Wahlburgers plus a massive themed candy aisle that looks like a sad outtake from Alice in Wonderland. If you go to Lunds and Byerlys (or as fancy people call it, L&B), you get carpeted floors, a wine bar, and weird looking carts with the added smell of everyone's rich grandmother. When I go to the grocery store, I want to go to a grocery store. With that in mind, I don't know if there is a better place in the world than Cub Foods.
I personally think about Cub Foods as a twin cities version of a Waffle House, more specifically the 24 hour Cub Foods. The simplicity of the store is what stands out, and when you find yourself at Cub Foods at midnight, you know that you are living your best life. When you enter Cub Foods, you don't feel like you are transported to another world and having a unique experience. You are sharing the same experience with everyone else, and there is nothing overtly special about it, and that's what makes it great. What is special about cub foods is the people. Much like a Waffle House where you know what you are getting into before it happens, the same goes for a Cub. You are as comfortable as you can be in a grocery store, and so is everyone else. If you see your neighbor there, you are going to say, “hi”. If a local sports team is bagging groceries for tips, you are going to give them a couple of bucks, maybe even a $20 so they can get new helmets or whatever they are working towards. The workers are either older people who have been there for a while or young people who will give you a smile and maybe get you a couple cents off gas at Holiday. There's no one there begging you to try a sample, the randomest food always seems to be on sale, and the lights are always a soft yellow hue that doesn't kill your eyes with its brightness.
Something that adds to the simplicity and comfortability of cub is also the fact that even in the newer stores give off an 80’s grocery store vibe. I did complain about takeout food earlier, but Cub has the best grocery store fried chicken anywhere and I put that on my life. They are also the only Grocery store that I know of that still sells cigarettes. Am I there to buy cigarettes? No. But am I glad that there is a grocery store that does? Yes, for some reason I am. Another old school thing is that there are still many 24/7 Cub’s out there which is unheard of in an age of grocery stores that wish they weren’t grocery stores. I just did a Google search of 24 hour grocery stores and the only store that would come up is Cub. Most people don't care about a grocery store being open that long, but when you need it it makes all the difference.
The true beauty of Cub Foods comes from the general vibe it gives off. Like a Culvers Butterburger or a Caribou coffee, It's a midwestern specialty, a fastball down the middle with no changeup. The people in the store are nice, the employees are as chill as can be, and they aren't trying to throw things at you that you don't need. Cub knows that it's a grocery store that sells food, not a food court that happens to have a grocery store. As the world is getting increasingly more complex, Cub Foods is a beautiful reminder that sometimes what we crave is simplicity.
