first European Bakery and now Bayside Market. Damn, which local shop is next? Target?

The european bakery lost my vote when they wouldn't take any form of credit.

When I worked downtown I *literally* offered them $20 to take my credit card or debit card. I wasn't going to go to the damn bank get out $5 and then go back there again. Also they wouldn't make custom rolls.

Bakeries have been destroyed by the supermarket. They just can't compete when all they can do is make cakes and donuts. Especially when they are fixed in 1940.

Who has cash on them these days?

Part of the reason Bayside is closing is because of all the fees they pay out to credit card companies.

Mel told me that when a person swipes a credit card for gas that the whole transaction is a wash for them.

The 3%, plus batch fees, plus "swipe" fee just ate up the small margin they had going.

I lived on the Point until I was 6 years old and remember Mr. Gieski(sp) giving me a Blow Pop when my mother would take me there to get this and that. They also had the BEST hamburger meat in town. i will miss that place and my summer BBQ's will be a little less flavorful.

Everyone bitches about credit fees. Perhaps they bitched about paying their electric bill and other such needed amenities.

Truly, I really feel for them. I'm sure running a small business was terribly difficult. My family lost 6 general stores statewide in the depression but still managed to keep one going. It provided for my family from 1942 to 1997 when a republican ex-uncle basically stole most of they money and sold the building. (without my grandfather knowing about it). Very sad.

oops. typo. I meant it provided from 1842 to 1997.

I'd gladly become a more frequent customer of any business which required cash payment. I'm sick of waiting in line behind people buying gum with their credit card.

European Bakery? Really? Dang. Speaking of closed businesses, anyone know whatever became of Suvindar, the Chef at the now closed Taj India? He was a good friend of mine and I live out of town these days.

I bought bagels once at the European Bakery. Inedible. Hard as rocks too. Too bad about Bayside Market, though.

I never carry cash but I still remember summers going to the beach at a friend's house in high school and walking down barefoot to the Bayside Market for snacks.

Have you driven down 1st street yet? Count how many "for sale" signs there are? If you are bitching about this, hold on to your fucking hat, because 2009 is going to be one fucking tough year for everybody. Rumors of Layoffs haunt every office in this town. Signs have appeared in the Tech Village for empty excutive suties, store fronts, and even the deli space next to Pizza Luce.

To be blunt with you elitists is that a story about the bakery closing appears on this website, yet no mention about the cirus layoffs.

There isn't a perfect day in Duluth anymore. People are leaving, school enrollment is decreases, the red plan is coming, you are being charged for a light pole in your yard, and if we get any more major snow storm the plow budget will go bankrupt.

Good Luck Elitists

i just wanna know if i take a hatchet to the power supply of the lightpole in my yard, do i still have to pay to keep the juice on?

The sky is falling! But only on we elitists!

It's Cirrus, not Cirus.

"To be blunt with you elitists is that a story..." is not even close to proper grammar.

Love,

The Elitist

Dunno. Just wear rubber insulated boots.

not everyone shops at Cirrus on a regular basis.

Cirrus' news sucks just as badly as the Euro bakery closing...but again, for a pack of elitists, we (again) don't spend a whole lot of time browsing the Cirrus showroom floor.

(you can't eat an airplane.)

The only time I personally have been anywhere near Cirrus' facility, was to apply for a job there back in 2001.

The position I would have had just got eliminated. Whatever asset I owned at that point (house, car, etc...) would be in jeopardy.

Glad I chose to become a coffee roaster instead.

I gotta make sure the rest of these "elitists" are awake for the revolution.

I was bummed about being called an elitist yet again, but Zra makes a good point: at least we'll have damn good coffee when we're working in the salt mines after the Revolution.

I expect to be somewhere toward the front of the up-against-the-wall-when-the-revolution-comes line, unfortunately.

That said.. Craig's sneering is uncalled-for, but Cirrus struggling does of course have some effect on rest of us, since people who work there spend their money all over town (including some of the small businesses we're talking about), pay taxes, and so forth.

I buy whole bean coffee, am I an elitist? I never would have guessed that a small community of elite hipsters in Duluth would be responsible for a national recession.

What is Craig’s point anyway? Is PDD not serious enough for a “patriot” like Craig? I guess Craig sees the sky falling and he wants to blame PDD. Maybe he should help the neo-hooverists over at the DCB figure out how to rescue the economy.

That's Good Luck Effete Elitists, or GLEE Club as we like to call ourselves.

I drove by the Market today and there is a sign that says closed - a FOR SALE sign with no phone number on it.

I know they want to sell it, but it's not listed on the MLS and unless you know who owns it and how to contact them, it would take some real sleuthing to see the place.

I really hope it gets sold and something else goes in there for both the Point and the Gyeski's sake (the taxes are really high) but it seems unlikely anyone will find it.

Ha ha, elitists? What's wrong with that guy??

Sure, it sucks if Cirrus is laying people off - those are good jobs and it would hurt the town. Is it the fault of people on this site? What a wack job.

Anyway, European bakery woudn't take credit cards? I can't stand businesses that act like it's still 1955. I tried to pay with a CC at Burger King on London Road and the clerk acted as if I was a total moron for expecting a fast food place to take a credit card. Hmm, maybe, unless you consider how fast food restaurants in pretty much every other town I've been to take CC's, because they're not archaic morons.

The comment about how that 3% wipes out all his profits - well, how do other gas stations survive? Seems like there's about 30,000,000 of them in the country that take credit and seem o do okay. Guess he should have raised his prices by that shocking 9c a gallon, then.

Alright you coffee drinking, local shopping elitists! STOP IT!!!! Whatever it is you are doing, stop it! It is ruffling feathers in town and the non-elitists are getting sick of you!

OK, so I'd gladly become a more frequent customer of any business which required cash payment except a fast "food" restaurant. I guess that makes me an archaic elitist.

Wait... we're elitists for caring about a bakery closing, which makes bread for just about everybody, but not having a post about an airplane company, which makes planes for large corporations and millionaires.

...

I think maybe I need to look up the meaning of elitist again, because that sounds positively proletarian to me.

i'll say it again:

you can't eat an airplane.

why bitch about not having a post about a company that makes stuff you can't ever possibly hope to afford?

definitely proletarian.

Jenny, Actually gas stations are struggling. They're trying to get people into the store to buy ANYTHING to make a profit. Gas is becoming not quite a loss leader, but not far from it either.

Here is an excerpt from a 2007 article : But even the bigger dealers have problems. Anton Parisi owns 13 stations across the Island and said he makes about 9 cents a gallon. But after credit card costs, Parisi gets about a nickel a gallon.

"You have to rely on alternate profit centers," he said.

That means a substantial number of pumps, a convenience store, service area and maybe a car wash, according to Cathy Ann Kenny, associate director of the New York State Petroleum Council.

Here's the link to the whole article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4189/is_/ai_n19048241

i'm sure secret service entertainment & adam are responsible for all this mess. thanks alot.

Don't even bring Secret Service into this. The economics of this town caused them to cancel X-Fest this year. How about the ploy they pulled when they wanted a later ending time for "their" festivals. Funny, how Jeff Anderson came to the table and passed that though the council.

I am impressed by the power of this website. I bitched to you elitists about cirus and guess what? They restarted production. So all those workers now have cash to pump into the community. That means that they might buy art, baked goods, coffee, local brewed beers, and attend shows.

Amazing.

The Perfect in "Perfect Day Duluth" will be irony for a while. You elitists complaining about a bakery or a gas station will have more to complain about in the future.

I hate this way of thinking on this site. I come here to find out what's going on in my community. Yet, I read the paper about the trouble this community is facing and dealing with and find that none of you "hyper-elitists" don't offer an solution.

I will applaud Adam for helping out the Lifehouse Center out with their problems.

Good Luck and I wish you happiness in '09.

You may rip on me now.

Well, you shamed me into buying an airplane, Craig. [I'm going to use it for something elite-y, like.. well, it's a personal airplane, duh.]

He he. Yeah, Craig's pretty cool.

C-I-R-R-U-S.

Good god.

not.

I don't think this website is called "Perfect Duluth Solutions".

You may be missing the point, Craig.

Craig's middle name must be "Solutions."

Or is it "I only come on here when I've got something to complain/whine/bitch about?"

I didn't post this to create an elitist war.

yeah, lucie, i know - gas is not profitable. So, they have to get you to buy other stuff, which is why I assume that guy had a whole little grocery store. So why would he be surprised that he doesn't make money from gas? Nobody else does, except King Saud, Exxon and Chavez.

hmm... someone, PLEASE, prove me wrong, but wasn't there an article in the DNT quoting the owner to the effect of, "We have wanted to sell for many years, but no one has made a good offer, I want to retire, so I'm closing up shop." How is big business bringing them down? Why didn't you buy the station?

Cirrus just brought back 500 people from layoff, in the 100 years that the gas pump and the bread store where open, how many people did they employ? And was the salary close to what Cirrus provided?

Bayside was family owned for several generations. It's pretty hard for a non- family member to take over running a store like that, and make the payment and turn a profit. A hard reality.

Lummox.

Okay, this thread is running WAY to long. Elitist, non-elitist, all this argument is boiling down to is I am right/you are wrong. Let it die already.

But, we can't stop now! Someone is wrong on the internet!