November 19, 2021

Heinen’s

By roads-rus

Ruth & I had the opportunity to visit Cleveland, Ohio, and had time for 3 attractions. One of them was a grocery store with an interesting Cleveland history. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Cleveland for many years. Of their 3 children, one of them still lives in this Ohio city. A train trip to visit them gave me a desire for more travel.

Heinen’s opened their first supermarket in Shaker Heights where my relatives lived way back in 1933. This was Cleveland’s first supermarket and one of the first of its kind in the USA. This chain is now a 3rd generation project run by Jeff and Tom Heinmen. These just happen to be the first names of my 2 male cousins who grew up in Shaker Heights. Tom is the one who still lives in Cleveland. Jeff lives in the middle of Wyoming.

Jeff and Tom’s company has grown to 23 stores. Several of them are in Ohio, but they have expanded to the Chicago area and now have stores in Barrington and Glenview. They even have come into my territory and have a store on Bainbridge Island in the Seattle area. There are now 4 Heinen stores in the Chicago suburban area. Heinen stores employ 3,500 people.

The Heinen’s in downtown Cleveland has become a tourist attraction. Trip Advisor has become a big fan of it. This store that is a good example of urban renewal has offbeat products like the aloe vera above. In 2013 the Heinen’s got an opportunity to open a store at 900 Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland. This is the one and only Heinen’s Ruth & I have been in. It’s in a fascinating landmark building called the Ameritrust Tower and Swetland Building. The market mostly occupies the space next to it, but shoppers have access to the historic dome and decorations in the adjoining building. They are worth seeing.

The Heinen stores specialize in homemade pies, but Ruth and I bought their homemade trail mix loaded with oatmeal and enjoyed it for the next several days on the road. It was both unique and delicious. We also sampled and loved big, juicy Ohio Gala apples that we bought at Heinen’s and elsewhere in this part of the country.

Heinen’s stores get excellent ratings and we were lucky to visit their flagship store in downtown Cleveland.

Hank

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About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 8:20 pm and posted in Lesser Known Attraction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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