Steve’s C-Town Is A Union Market Copycat

Steve’s C-Town on 9th Street has done away with it’s glaring red and yellow McDonald’s-ish design and ripped off Union Market’s design. The new black background with white and green design and ever-present stars are a total copycat. Even borrowing the word “Market” from Union Market is the sincerest form of rip-off flattery. It now goes by the name “Steve’s 9^th Street Market”. Thanks Patricia, the FIPster tipster who wrote in to inform us. I imagine they are hoping the cloth bag carrying zombies of Park Slope will stumble in mistaking the place for the shrine of pricy edible sundries that is Union Market. Drooling & lumbering Park Slope masses will chant “Follow the star. Follow the star.”

I had to get to the bottom of the logo likeness because I have no life. When I spoke to a Steve’s 9^th Street Market employee he played dumb to the logo similarities but he did let me know that the name and logo change was just the tip of the organic iceberg lettuce.

We’re upgrading the whole store. We’re not even half way done. My boss changed the name of it. We’re upgraded interior decorations, the aisles and registers. There’ll be old (vintage) pictures of the neighborhood when you walk in, like the old Pavillion Theater and a map of Park Slope.

C-Town Supermarkets are independently owned and operated, so I guess Steve is making his own decisions for what suits his shoppers. Yeah, we Slopers like old photos and fancy registers (like they have at Union Market) so you’re on the right track, Steve. We seem to dig the term Market, as in this little piggy went to one. Certainly all the changes can’t be UM (Union Market-ish). I asked the Steve’s 9^th Street Market employee what other changes Steve had in mind for his mastermind overhaul?

There’ll be more organics and prepared foods.

Well, that’s what I spend my children’s future college tuition on at Union Market. Now, I’ll have another option! To finalize the cloning, whiney relationship challenged celebrities will need to be seen shopping there. Work on that, Steve. 

Steve’s C-town was the only place outside of my favorite Chinatown grocery store that I used to occasionally find May Wah Vegetarian Gong Bao Chicken, the best vegetarian faux meat product on planet earth. When I did spot it I would sing Ava Maria and chip away at the layer of ice it was always buried under in the back of the freezer section and buy it all!

My flipside plea to Steve’s C-town is to keep it real (by that I mean fake and processed). I depend on you for things I can’t get at Union Market, like Ellios Pizza, Gatorade and Entenmann’s loaf cakes. Got it, Steve? Keep that old school shit in stock but also chip the ice off your rare inventory of vegan May Wah products.

So it looks like, pending any lawsuits, Park Slope wise men (and women) will now have another choice when going in the direction of the star to meet their savior, or at least their righteous dinner ingredients.  

Images: taken by me