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Chicken salad. Fried chicken. Potato wedges.* White house rolls.

All are great. But truth be told, the bakery takes hold of my appetite as soon as I walk through the door.

With the final sale looming on Monday, I decided to enjoy a few of my favorites in these “last days.” In no particular order:

• Tuesday: Glazed Donut
  Mmm. Terry’s Bakery in Farmville had some good ones. And a hot-off-the-conveyor Krispy Kreme has always been tempting. But Ukrop’s glazed donuts are great. Simply and fresh.
• Wednesday: Iced Brownie Bite
  I’ve never needed an entire tray (except my birthday last year when the church gave me one), but I always picked up 3 when they were stocked in the bakery case.
• Thursday: Chocolate Pie
  One of my favorite pies of all time. One almost always finds its way into holiday meals in Roanoke.
• Friday: Triple Chocolate Cheesecake
  I stumbled onto this one day a few years ago. It’s a chocolate cheesecake on Oreo crumb crust with chocolate chips and chocolate drizzled on top. I might be eating on this one for a while.
• Saturday: Rainbow Cookies
  Saving these for last [see yesterday's post].
• Honorable Mention: cinnamon coffee cake
  I don’t know if it was because it was Super Bowl week or because of the snow in the forecast, but I couldn’t find a coffee cake to save my life. Oh well.

And in true Ukrop’s form, I’ll take today off. And tomorrow, the landscape of Richmond will change, yet again. So long, Ukrop’s. It’s been a good ride.

*one of the top benefits of living behind a Ukrop’s store is that when their kitchen cranks up just before the dinnertime rush, the wonderful smell of potato wedges wafts over our front yard.

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It was a long time before I met James R., but James R. sure knew a lot about me.

In the summer of ’04, James R. heard about my experience in Zimbabwe, and when he asked about the story, he heard about how we were detained by the authorities. When I wrote a story in a state newspaper, James R. read a copy.

The next summer, James R. knew I was going to Jamaica for a month, and when he asked, learned that we had made it through two strong, Caribbean hurricanes.

In between the summers, James R. wanted to know about my college journey, my start in youth ministry and my decision to go to seminary. All this in the checkout line at the grocery store.

For many, the Ukrop’s checkout line has been a city-sized version of an old country store. Catching up with friends. Knowing each other’s stories. And they carried your groceries out for you!

I finally met James R. Like many others throughout the years, he was a quality employee. For all those years, he was always working on my mom’s weekly Ukrop’s run. He packed her bags and carried them to the car.

Quality service and relationships will keep customers coming back, building a lifelong loyalty. It is the loyalty that has kept locals shopping in their small communities while the box stores crept in. And on those two pillars, Ukrop’s was built.

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What are they? A sugar cookie? It’s a palette of red, yellow and green in a tasty treat.

But it’s more than a cookie, they are a memory.

For a long time, the Ukrop’s bakery kept a stash of these cookies for their youngest shoppers. When I was little (or maybe when Cameron was a toddler), I remember walking up to the bakery to ask for my cookie.

Rainbow cookies got me through trips to the grocery store.

I saw a stash behind the counter last week at the bakery, but it’s been a long time since I saw a kid ask for one.

Sometime last year at the Brook Road store, I asked for a few rainbow cookies from the bakery. I was going to buy them. I didn’t need a dozen, or a whole tub. Just a few would do, 5 or 6. But I think the lady at the bakery thought I was still a kid and I was just asking for my cookie. She told me she couldn’t give me that many, so she put two in a bag and sent me on my way.

When the sale was announced, rainbow cookies were the first Ukrop’s bakery product to cross my mind. Not my #1 favorite, but certainly at the top of my “twirler.”*

This snow storm is putting a wrench in my “plan,” but hopefully I’ll be able to have a rainbow cookie before the sale is final.

*twirler: a word I made up as a child to describe the old-fashioned slide show-type reel that I pictured was in my head.

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Last week's iced brownie bites. All-time favorite.

Ukrop’s is everywhere in Richmond: north, south, east, west. Even a few out-of-town locations through the years. While I don’t think I made it to all of them, here are a few, and some memories from them:

• Ashland/Hanover
  A few times while I was working in Mechanicsville, I would venture to Ashland and occasionally stopped into this store.
• Brook Run
  My first year at the seminary, this was the “neighborhood” Ukrop’s. In the evenings, it was nice and quiet, a good place to shop.
• Carytown
  When I finally had a car in college, this Ukrop’s was on my drive out to New Bethesda, but it was certainly my third choice.
• Chesterfield Towne Center
  When this store opened, it was the closest one to home, and a great spot for Friday night dinners when Dad was “cooking.”
• Crossridge
  Kim and I stopped into this store one time last year, after we visited the fabric store. Don’t know what we got, but I remember the fabric store.
• Gayton Crossing
  For a long time, this was a “far off” Ukrop’s in the West End (a long way from the southside before Rt 288!). Numerous times, we met Mom and Dad’s college friends (and one of Cameron’s future college friends) there during the holiday season. It’s a little closer to home now, and the only place in town that had a snow shovel during the great snow storm of December ‘09!
• Harbour Pointe
  On August 25, 2007, Kim and I had been engaged for less than a week. The chance finally came for our families to meet, and where else to meet but Ukrop’s?
• John Rolfe
  As many Ukrop’s stores as there are in Richmond, I never had one in my backyard. Until this one. I only walked once, over the river (creek) and through the woods.
• Mechanicsville
  I stopped in this store almost weekly while I was working in Mechanicsville. I’d swing by for lunch, or pick up groceries before heading back to my apartment (college and seminary). A couple of our college students worked there, and their manager would become one of my youth leaders.
• Short Pump
  They say this is the chain’s #1 store, and I can see why. This is our backup store now — if John Rolfe doesn’t have something we’re looking for, Short Pump normally does (usually caffeine free Diet Dr. Pepper).
• Stony Point
  This was “home” for a long time. It was near school, church. In high school, we’d stop in at Subway for Wednesday night dinner and I’d swing through Ukrop’s to pick up dessert (mint Tic-Tacs for me).
• Stratford Hills
  I remember the old one and the new one. The new one is a definite improvement!
• Sycamore Square
  When my parents moved and we’d pick up pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner, this was our usual stop to pick up drinks.
• The Village
  A.k.a. “UR’s Ukrop’s.” I probably ate lunch with Jacob here more than I shopped for groceries. I think this is where I first really told him about Kim.
• Virginia Center Marketplace
  Like the Ashland store, I usually ended up in the Virginia Center Commons area while I was working in Mechanicsville. It wasn’t too far from the seminary, either.
• Westpark
  After we got married, this store was almost in our backyard (not as close as John Rolfe is now, though!).
• White Oak Village
  Is this the newest store? Kim’s office is just down the street, so we’ve eaten at White Oak a few times.
• Williamsburg
  In the spring of 2000, coach put me in to pitch against Walsingham Academy at William & Mary’s Plumeri Park. A flubbed up pitch out and three pitches later, lightning struck, the rain came pouring down and the game ended. And then we went to dinner at Ukrop’s.
• Roanoke
  The summer after Kim and I started dating, the Roanoke store opened. An underground parking deck, the farthest store from Richmond, and down the street from her apartment. How could I stay away?
• Fredericksburg
  This store has closed since the sale to Ahold, but I remember going a few times, maybe when Impact Virginia! was in Bowling Green?
• Old Midlothian Turnpike
  There’s one other store that has since closed, down Midlothian Turnpike, behind Putt Putt. I vaguely remember going at some point.

That’s a lot of grocery shopping and meals, and as I moved from the southside to the city to Mechanicsville to Short Pump, Ukrop’s has been like the corner store. Now we say goodbye to another Richmond institution.

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Old friends were coming for dinner, and we had just returned from a New Year’s Eve trip. We needed a few things from the store to round out the menu, so I took the short drive to the Ukrop’s outside our neighborhood.

It didn’t take long to fill the shopping basket, and I headed for the self service checkout. Quick and easy, I’d be out in a jiffy. One by one, I scanned the items and dropped them into a paper bag, except for the fresh ground beef, which I put in a separate plastic bag (I didn’t want to start the new year with e.Coli).

I hurried home, unpacked the groceries and breathed a sigh of relief. Dinner might be ready before our friends arrived.

“Hey,” Kim shouted from the kitchen, “you didn’t get the ground beef, did you?”

What? I knew I had picked up the ground beef. I had even put it in a separate bag. Wait, I thought, I had left the bag on the checkout counter.

I grabbed my keys and hurried back to the store and walked up to the self service attendant. Before I could open my mouth:

“You forgot your ground beef!” she said. You got it, that’s why I’m back.

“I put it back in the refrigerator case. I’ll show you.”

Not “three aisles down, on the top shelf.” Not “it’s over there.”

“I’ll show you.”

Sure enough, she led me right to it. On the third shelf, right where she had left it. I smiled, thanked her and walked out of the store.

After 26 years of shopping at the family-owned Ukrop’s, that will change Monday as the sale to Ahold (Giant/Martin’s) becomes official. What follows over the next few days are a few highlights and memories.

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