Grocery change not sitting well

Wednesday was dessert day at The Kiosk, a counter at Metropolitan Market on Queen Anne Hill where distinctive groceries are introduced to discriminating shoppers.

Samples included shortbread with hibiscus and rose petals, and marzipan layered with gingerbread and fruit jelly and coated in dark chocolate.

In the grocery game, Metropolitan Market is what is known as a specialty store. The root of specialty is special. And that's how people who live on Queen Anne like to think of their neighborhood.

So when they got wind that Metropolitan Market will lose its lease in a year to make room for a big, new QFC, the neighborhood reacted as if it were about to lose its high school (which, incidentally, it already did, some 20 years ago).

After all, grocery stores don't just feed a neighborhood. They also feed a neighborhood's self-esteem. And if Queen Anne folks think of Metropolitan Market as shortbread with rose petals, then they consider QFC a vanilla wafer.

QFC, a part of the Cincinnati-based Kroger chain, operates 74 stores in the Puget Sound area. Metropolitan has five.

"QFC is just a big, yucky store," said Miriam Lemcio, who lives in west Queen Anne, while shopping at Metropolitan's seafood counter. "There, they want you to get their little card in order to get price breaks. Here, they send you a card in the mail that says 'Thanks for shopping here.' "

Metropolitan Market (formerly Queen Anne Thriftway before it was rebranded in 2003) has leased the store at 1908 Queen Anne Ave. N. from the same family for 45 years. That family, however, is proposing a redevelopment that would replace the 14,000-square-foot store with a 38,000-square-foot QFC and 15,000 square feet of retail on top of it. QFC has inked the lease, contingent on the development getting the required city permits.

On Monday, about 200 residents aired their gripes to the Queen Anne Community Council's land-use review committee. The chairman, Craig Hanway, said there are two main concerns: They don't want a huge development to alter the pedestrian-friendly character of the street. And they don't want to lose their high-end grocery store.

"There is a big emotional response out there," Hanway said. "Metropolitan Market is a locally owned business that has been very involved in this community for many years, and is very responsive to their customers. People don't trust that QFC can provide that level of service or involvement."

At the meeting, a QFC representative passed out fliers touting some big ideas for the new store, including freshly prepared sushi, a gourmet-cheese section and an extensive selection of specialty products.

"QFC has many of the same specialty-item vendors that supply Metropolitan Market and looks forward to supplying the [new store] with the same kinds of products the residents of Queen Anne want," the flier said.

QFC's new "urban concept" approach for the store would be pedestrian-oriented and would have an outdoor floral shop similar to the one that pretties the street in front of Metropolitan Market.

Kristin Maas, QFC's advertising director, said Queen Anne shoppers should keep in mind that even though Kroger is in Ohio, QFC is managed and operated locally.

"Kroger has come to understand the very unique qualities of the Pacific Northwest and that within the Pacific Northwest itself, there are micromarkets," said Maas, who works in Bellevue. "Every QFC is different in terms of what it carries. Queen Anne is different than Gig Harbor or Mercer Island or Stanwood."

But it's still a hard sell in upper Queen Anne, which already has a Safeway, a Trader Joe's and a Ken's Market. There also already is a QFC at the bottom of Queen Anne Hill, next to KeyArena — a store that Maas admitted is not one of the most sparkling within the chain. That store likely will close soon, when QFC opens its first "urban concept" store at Fifth Avenue North and West Mercer Street, where Tower Records used to be.

QFC has faced similar resistance in the past.

In 1999, Wedgwood residents unsuccessfully opposed QFC's buyout of the locally owned Matthew's Red Apple Market. A few years before that, Wallingford residents successfully demanded that if QFC took over the landmark Food Giant on North 45th Street, it should use some of the well-known neon letters that spelled "FOOD GIANT" to spell "WALLINGFORD."

At Metropolitan Market, neon isn't so much an issue as the deli salads. The selection includes Northwest spinach farfalle topped with hazelnuts and Middle Eastern lima bean. Prepared meals include ravioli portabello and Madras curry chicken. The store also sells kitchen items, such as imported martini glasses.

Now, Metropolitan Market finds itself caught between getting showered with love from the neighborhood while trying to maintain a good relationship with its longtime landlord.

"It's very humbling to see the community reaction," CEO Terry Halverson said.

Christina Cox, one of the heirs who own the property originally purchased by her grandmother, said the family has wanted to redevelop it for about seven years because the building is old and obsolete. The neighborhood opposed a previous proposal to build a larger Metropolitan Market beneath 70 apartments because of its size, so the family withdrew that plan and went with the current project.

Halverson said Metropolitan Market wants to remain on Queen Anne, but the current development project didn't pencil out for the company.

"If QFC decides not to have the store, for whatever reason, certainly we'd like to go back to the drawing board with our landlord and work something out," he said.

Cox said that after Metropolitan Market "decided to move in a different direction, we had no alternative but to move forward with a different tenant, and of those grocers we talked to, QFC represented the best fit."

"Our goal is to create a high-quality environment that contributes to the pedestrian-friendly vitality of the neighborhood," she said. "There still is time to make this project exciting in many ways."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com

A previous version of this story contained an error. The name of Matthew's Red Apple Market in Wedgwood was incorrect.