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When I first worked at the Gazette, I didn’t know where things were. I drove past the Niagara Falls City Market three times in winter and didn’t find it.
Then I found the Portage Road Tops. It was straight out of the 70s, sort of retro, with big aisles and questionable produce.
A forum on the state of our neighborhood grocery is being organized by Ezra Scott Sr. for 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2 at Word of Life Ministries on Hyde Park Boulevard.
If you come in wanting a 5-pound bag of potatoes when they are BOGO, you better be prepared to take 10 pounds of potatoes for $5 because YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE FOR $2.50. For us, this means we give one away, to a neighbor or someone in line at the register.
Our neighbors don’t shop there, preferring Lewiston, 7 minutes away, in a mostly white community to Tops adjacent to the rundown bus station and homeless shelter. I still go to Portage Road even though I hate self checkout and most of the time only one register staffed by a real person is open. This morning the store was clean and well stocked with an armed female security guard watching carefully over an empty parking lot.
The Tops Brand in Niagara Falls used to mean something. It was synonymous with Castellani, a family that was loved and respected but has lost its legacy, at least on Portage Road. (Next to the disgrace of a bus station about which the NFTA does not care.)
The store is forgotten in time. A smallish produce section lacks variety. A cavernous area just before the bakery is filled with pop, chips and candy. I am sure many stores, Wegmans include, devote more space to junk than produce but it usually isn’t that blatant.
In the last year, Tops invested in fixing up stores at 4235 Military Road and 7200 Niagara Falls Blvd. as well as in Lewiston. In Lewiston, an addition is being added to the front of the store. A Starbucks opened insided in recent years. Meanwhile, Portage Road Tops is the bastard stepchild but somehow first born.
The only good thing on Portage Road is they have a supply of Judaica – you can’t find a Yahrzeit candle in most Wegmans but there is one on Portage Road in Niagara Falls.
It’s great, if you need one to commemorate a loved one you’ve lost. It’s also homage to the Niagara Falls of 50 years ago, when there was a thriving Jewish population.
Reality is those Jews have long gone. The last Temple in the Falls is still open, thanks to the largess of Eli Cohen and his investors, but every member of the shrinking congregation is in Social Security age or beyond.
Meanwhile, an Islamic population has descended on Niagara Falls because it is a good place to find a way. That population is thriving with a Mosque, a few restaurants and groceries.
On Portage Road, Tops is deaf to the market. There are no Halal meats, no bitter melon, no fresh turmeric, lychee, tamarind or puffed rice, exotic foods that make me question and explore.
There is a perpetual “$5 for $19.99” meat sale but it’s not really. Most of the packages in that section were priced individually between $4.50 and $5.
Hopefully, following the community meeting, the owners of the Portage Road Tops will begin to hear the voice of the community, grateful it didn’t go the way of Slipko’s but also wondering why they treat us with contempt.
