Why I Like Chains

Some people hate chain stores, but I’ve never been one to protest in front of McDonald’s or Starbucks. I like chains, especially now.

I like chain stores when I’m feeling disoriented and vulnerable. When I was 17, I went to England with my family for the summer. I missed my friends and boyfriend. I was sulky at being stuck in a small house with my family in a tiny agricultural town outside of Nottingham. Although my father refused to set foot in an American restaurant, preferring to eat what looked like a french fry sandwich at the local pub, when I went into Nottingham or London by myself I ate at McDonald’s. Eating my chicken sandwich and Coke, I took comfort in being able to have more or less what I could get at home.

Before I arrived in St. Louis, I looked up the nearest Target and Home Depot. I found a Schnucks grocery store (a regional chain, pronounced “Shnooks”) 1.2 miles from my house. I knew where I could find Borders, Barnes and Noble, and T.G.I. Friday’s.

The beauty of shopping at a place like Target is you can walk in and immediately find your way around. Chains are the same everywhere, and that’s reassuring if you like where you’re leaving and hope a new place can be similar. When I see a Starbucks sign on the highway, I know I can get my tall iced skim café mocha, light whip, and be back on the road within 10 minutes.

Of course there’s more to chains than cheering monotony. They have many drawbacks, as anyone who has read Fast Food Nation can tell you. As a good liberal, I’m wary of big corporations and don’t necessarily trust them to act ethically. I hate the idea that chain stores and restaurants can squeeze small businesses out of existence.

The greatest strength of chains—their sameness—is also their biggest weakness. It’s hard to love a chain. Distinctive shops and restaurants give a town a sense of place. In Philadelphia, my husband and I shopped and volunteered 6 hours a year at our quirky and earnest food co-op. We had a favorite Mexican restaurant with a delicious BBQ duck burrito. We often ate at the Trolley Car Diner, with its weekday specials named after the local train stations. We looked at digital cameras at Best Buy, but ultimately decided to pay slightly more for the expertise and service we could find at a local camera shop. When I lived in England for two years during grad school, I ate at McDonald’s when I felt homesick, but I enjoyed having crumpets or sandwiches for tea with my English friends far more.

I hope as a society we can strike a balance between the local and the national, the familiar and the new. In time, I hope to discover distinctive places in St. Louis that I like just as much as those I left behind in Philadelphia. But in the meantime, I’ll follow my overarching (no pun intended) plan for this move: start with the familiar and work outward.