The grocery giant克罗格announced this week that it was buyingMurray's Cheese, the famously swanky shop located in New York's Greenwich Village. The news elicited acurdled reactionin some (people who like Murray's better than they like retail colossi), mild indifference in others (literally everybody who doesn't live in Manhattan), and a sharp sense of hope in yet others—for instance,my boss, who points out that克罗格and Murray'shave a preexisting relationship that this new merger may only strengthen.
In fact, since 2008, Kroger has hosted350 Murray's cheese countersin select stores across the country, staffed with trained Murray's cheesemongers hawkingwashed-rind delicaciesto the masses, unwashed and otherwise. Depending on your position in the country, this was either a lucky stroke or it was not. Where I used to live in Ohio, the closest Kroger was in the town of Fairborn—no specialty cheese counter, and not a terrifically great cheese selection, either. (Nice produce, though.)
David, meanwhile, recalls stumbling across a Murray's counter in a Kroger just about an hour south of Fairborn in Cincinnati, where Kroger is headquartered. "It really is like a mini-Murray's," he says. "All the cheese has a Murray's sticker on it, and if I'm remembering correctly, the woman manning the station was wearing a Murray's uniform. I think it was a jumpsuit! It’s ultimately really great. Beautiful cheeses and an expert to guide you through them—what’s there to be mad about?"
克罗格did not immediately return our request for more information. But Kroger's purchase of the Murray's flagship would seem to signal that this has been a fruitful collaboration so far—and Kroger has said it don't be messing with the original Murray's—so hopefully this merger will lead to more wide-ranging cheese options in places in the country other than Greenwich Village.The people deserve bread, but they deserve burrata too.
