Wows at Wegmans.

The newest Wegmans supermarket opened last month in Cherry Hill, N.J., just a few minutes outside of Center City Philadelphia. Visiting before and after the opening, I realized that every Wegmans I've visited has triggered at least one "wow" for me--this store triggered two. The first came from competing salmon features, one on each side of an aisle that's more like a bazaar passage. On one side, a free-standing freezer case featured two-pound bags of frozen farmed-salmon portions boldly priced at $4.99 a pound. Across the aisle, an equally bold price sign advertised wild salmon at over $20 a pound. The message I got was "We have it all. Pick your price and enjoy!" My second "wow" was triggered by a handsome display of Waterford crystal, almost mind-boggling at a supermarket. We like using water pitchers for dinner, and the merchandise on display included a lovely pitcher in just our size priced at only $75. Dare I buy this at a supermarket, even one called Wegmans? I heard another visitor at the same display exclaim, "What a great place this is for gifts!"

A food writer doing a big Wegmans story for The Philadelphia Inquirer's weekly food section described the new store in glowing terms laced with timeouts for local exceptions: "it takes some getting used to, but has an old-world marketplace feel with new-world style." Her mixed messages were sharpest in a subtly hostile closing paragraph that readers and shoppers in Philadelphia and South Jersey will find all too familiar: "Time will tell. But [I] spent more at ShopRite than at Wegmans, and will go back to both." The subtext of that statement implies that "Wegmans is a "hotsy-totsy" big deal, but we've been shopping at ShopRite for a long time and aren't about to stop, or even sure that Wegmans belongs here." The Not-Invented-Here challenge that New Jerseyians (especially South Jerseyians) use to defend themselves from more sophisticated neighbors at each end of its infamous N.J. Turnpike will be a challenge for Wegmans that their talent, tenacity, customer focus and wonderful arrays of really good food will almost certainly overcome.

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