The grocery store a few blocks from my house in Washington, D.C. was for many years known as the Social Safeway. This tongue-in-cheek appellation referred to the fact that it was the only full-size grocery store within walking distance of Georgetown and, for that reason, a place where inhabitants of the city’s clubbiest—though not necessarily wealthiest—neighborhood would naturally rub shoulders. I remember in high school sometimes walking up there to gawk. I was not the only one: In 2010, Safeway, seeking to capitalize on the location’s swank reputation, hosted a late-night cocktail party on the store floor, where the company literally rolled out a red carpet for local eminences, city government officials, and D.C.’s shadow representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton. It was a strictly black-tie affair, afterwards considered a triumph for one of the country’s largest grocery chains.
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