Shake Shack is, of course, one of the great New York City success stories. Started as a stand in Madison Square Park, it’s grown to well over 100 locations around the world, all of which promise burgers and fries with an increased focus on quality and hospitality. Sbarro, meanwhile, was once a family-run New York operation that specialized in Italian-American food, and which is now in every food court in every mall in America (or so it seems). Yet after the growth, Sbarro’s defining feature is the mediocrity of its food. Expansion — and corporate influence — can have a wide-ranging effect on a small, independent business. Murray’s Cheese, long a beloved Bleecker Street destination for soft-ripened triple creams and brandy-washed wheels of Époisses, is now at this crossroads. This year, the business — comprising, among other assets, the shop, a Grand Central Terminal outpost, and extensive aging caves — was sold to the Cincinnati-based Kroger grocery chain, which currently operates 2,796 stores. Now, Murray’s has the means to grow, but will expansion turn it into something like the Shake Shack of cheese shops, or will it wind up sacrificing quality for size, like Sbarro?
For decades, Murray’s has been that idealized type of New York business: The stand-alone storefront that’s so dedicated to its cause — cheese in all of its glorious forms — that the bottom line almost seems secondary. (Writer Calvin Trillin’s adored tour of his favorite food destinations in the city, itself something of a New York institution, often began at Murray’s.) So it was surprising when news of the sale — which on the surface has all the trappings of either a financial bailout, or simply selling out — became public.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Grub Street