The Pierce Street storefront that last housed City Clothing is turning into a comfort-food takeaway.
We like to support small neighborhood shops whenever possible. But City Clothing was an exception, a holdover from a less-democratic retail landscape in which it was OK, possibly even store policy, to actively turn away the "wrong" type of customer. On a particularly memorable occasion a year ago summer, we crossed its threshold to peruse the Velvet dresses interspersed with the Juicy Couture hookups that must have been the business' bread and butter.
"Those are all smalls!" the clerk bellowed in an LA-style vocal fry from her perch behind the cash register.
Was she trying to embarrass me? Send me away? Get rid of the only potential customer in the place so she could continue her very important conversation?
"I know I'm not a small," I apologized. "I'm just looking at the styles." I did a quick lap, and my disposable income and I walked out and never went back.
So, the irony is more than delicious that this once exclusive, size-ist boutique will be a home for healthy comfort food. Whereas its once ideal customers were cookie-cutter bulimics, its replacement looks like it will appreciate and enable the filling of bellies.
Stay tuned.
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