Grocery Store

At 86, Freda Hirsch is still behind the counter of her tiny, well-stocked Phoenixville grocery store every day, expertly assembling hoagies, doling out penny candy, and cheerfully greeting her longtime customers. "People love going in her shop," said Sheila Cain-Coghill, another Phoenixville merchant. "She's just one of these beloved town people. " But what some of her customers may not know is that Hirsch, now a great-grandmother, is also a painter. On Wednesday, the town celebrated Hirsch's life and art with a progressive dinner at three venues, marking the opening of her first one-woman show at Benevolent Arts.

Campbell Soup Co. executives said sales of soup in microwavable containers surpassed $100 million in the first half of fiscal 2004, giving them confidence that its soups have a future in a world of convenience foods. Still, Campbell's Soup at Hand, Chunky and Select soups in single-serve microwavable cups and bowls accounted for no more than 6 percent of the Camden food company's $1.7 billion in North American soup sales - including food service - from August through January. "We are a company that is anchored too strongly in the grocery store and the pantry," Campbell Soup president and chief executive officer Douglas R. Conant said yesterday during a conference call to discuss the company's second-quarter results.

Texas Tech coach Bob Knight got into a verbal spat with the university chancellor, David Smith, at a grocery store yesterday, prompting a review by school officials. One eyewitness told the Lubbock Avalance-Journal Knight raised his voice to Smith after the chancellor approached him at a salad bar to compliment the coach on his recent good behavior. The witness said Knight flew into a rage and accused Smith of being a liar, saying nothing had been wrong with his demeanor this year.

Attention, crooks: Next time you rob a store, take a second to glance up at the wall. If you see a mounted camera, try to make different plans. A good example of why can be found in a videotape released yesterday by Philadelphia police, hours after three armed men robbed a South Philadelphia corner store about 9 a.m. The tape shows the three waiting as a customer completes a transaction at Lynnda's Grocery at 24th and Christian Streets....

Citing a link between a lack of supermarkets and diet-related disease, a legislative report to be released next month calls on state government and municipalities to find ways to attract full-service grocery stores into low-income urban neighborhoods. The report, prepared by the House Committee on Health and Human Services, said the state Department of Community and Economic Development and local governments should create economic incentives to bring supermarkets back to urban neighborhoods and eliminate existing tax and regulatory barriers.

An armored car robbery at a Whole Foods Market yesterday led to a three-hour search in this Main Line community and an emergency lockdown at Lower Merion High School. Officers with rifles and police dogs searched an adjacent neighborhood for one gunman, who had run across the SEPTA railroad tracks behind the grocery. A second gunman escaped in a dark green Lexus sedan with Pennsylvania registration ELP5386. Neither man was in custody last night. "It looks like they eluded our net," Lower Merion Police Superintendent Joseph J. Daly said.

Last year, the announcement that a McDonald's restaurant would be constructed at the corner of Girard Avenue and 27th Street prompted strong opposition from local civic groups and renewed residents' requests for a supermarket. On May 19, McDonald's Corp. announced that it had canceled its contract for the site. Residents still must depend on corner shops or travel to other neighborhoods. By Wendy Hutson When I moved to Brewerytown three years ago from Mount Airy, it never occurred to me that there would be a problem getting access to food.

It's just not that simple. This commonly used phrase is meant to remind us of the complexities of certain dilemmas, and the dispute over building a McDonald's restaurant at the corner of Girard Avenue and 27th Street certainly falls into the category of "dilemma. " McDonald's wants a restaurant. Many community residents do not. It's "just not that simple" to decide between the restaurant and the people's will. Or is it? For generations, urban planners, sociologists, politicians, church groups and citizens in Philadelphia and communities around the country have been trying to remake neighborhoods from the shattered pieces of inner cities.

Driving through Lancaster County, Montreal tourists Tony Therrien and Eric Beausoleil wondered what drew a seemingly unending caravan of motor coaches to the white-columned building dominating a hill off Route 23. Was it a historic building? A religious gathering hall? A little of both, they found: The Shady Maple Smorgasbord, a temple of gluttony that recently expanded to feed 1,200 people at a time. "It's really, really, really, really big," Beausoleil said as he aimed a video camera at the people queued up for a buffet that beckons with at least eight types of meats, 46 salad bar choices, and a mammoth dessert bar that offers six apple confections alone.

A months-long program to change the name of Philadelphia-area Fresh Fields stores to Whole Foods Market was scheduled to be completed yesterday, officials of the upscale natural-foods chain said. Banners stamped with Fresh Fields, which have covered new signs bearing the Whole Foods Market name, the name of its parent company, were coming down at stores on Callowhill Street and South Street in Philadelphia, and at stores in Jenkintown, Marlton, North Wales, Wayne and Wynnewood, said Sarah Kenney, marketing director for Whole Foods' Mid-Atlantic region.