My former employer is on fire!

[Judas Maccabeus]

Sharp is an Anabaptist last name; the most widespread example would be Marie Sharp hot sauce. Sharp Shopper is one of those things like Good’s potato chips or Walnut Creek Foods that mysteriously appears in every plain area.

I wonder how much “density “ we need in my fair city before we qualify. It is a pain to drive up to Ephrata for shopping. Can’t do without the Wenger’s ham loaf.

Won’t happen, part of what makes the “plain thing” work is having a gigantic labour pool of Amish people to draw from and a general lower cost of doing business including very sympathetic local government that rolls out the red carpet for such businesses.

My wife doesn’t really like “Amish stores” as she calls them. We have 1 local Mennonite store in town and that’s it. Amish country is an hour away. We do have an Amish settlement 20 minutes south with a hardware store and bent and dent store but we never seem to get around to going there.

It does become obvious that the cost of living is lower in these areas simply because of the bargain priced food and goods with good quality and wide selection.

Yeah, we have “food deserts “ largely because the local populace has made it unprofitable to operate because of the shoplifting. And property taxes are murder, I know of $10,000 plus property tax bills on a single family home. Large one , mind you, 5 bedrooms. But a single family home nonetheless. Looks like we will be driving for the foreseeable future. One trip a month.

[steve-in-kville]

It must be official:
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/ ... OjqQg9BLsJ

[Grace]

It must be official:
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/ ... OjqQg9BLsJ

I sure miss that store. But I can't say I blame them. The other JFM businesses, such as their meat packing plant and their bacon plant were carrying much of the store. There are plenty of other grocery stores around, but none like Martin's Country Market. Weis' has good deals. But I don't like to be greeted with the beer and booze section when entering. I hate their loud music, but they have a large selection and prices are reasonable.

[steve-in-kville]

Maybe it is like Weaver Nut: further ahead to stick with wholesale. Maybe the retail end was nice, but with e-commerce, stores like that are a thing of the past for certain generations.