The
area's newest shopping center, the $10 million Brookhaven Plaza in
DeKalb County, offers the familiar stuff - and two businesses
Atlanta has never seen before.
The familiar first: Located
on Peachtree Road at North Druid Hills Road, the 65,000-square-foot
plaza houses a McDonald's, Eckerd Drugs, Blockbuster Video and a
liquor store called Top Hat Package. All have opened.
Then
there is Atlanta's first Harris Teeter supermarket, due to open Oct.
6, and another business with the cryptic name of Bookears.
"Harris Teeter is the modern day version of an old
neighborhood food store where customers are still being taken care
of," said Rush Dickson, company senior vice president.
When
the 44,680-square-foot store opens, it will have 450 employees,
including 30 with culinary industry training. Specialty foods will
be an area of emphasis, and typical of the race for the busy north
Atlanta dollar, gourmet will be a big word in all departments.
But some see the Harris Teeter approach as unique.
"We don't think there's direct competition for this," said
Robert Griffith of Griffith and Associates Inc., the Atlantan real
estate developer that built the plaza.
Besides "ordinary"
groceries, the store will feature a coffee bar, a wine-section with
a steward and a food-service area with restaurant- quality dishes.
In addition to seafood and meat departments, there will be a
florist, a fruit and melon bar and a follow-the-trend,
made-from-scratch bakery.
"For us, quality service, for
instance, means that there'll always be [a specialist] in the meat
department," said Dickson. "He'll know the customers by name. And if
somebody needs a 1.25 pound package and it's not available, he'll
get it for them."
Based in Charlotte, Harris Teeter operates
140 stores, totaling more than $1.5 billion per year in sales. The
company plans to open five more stores in the Atlantan area over the
next two years.
"We'd rather have a few and each one well
done than a lot that are not well done," said Dickson.
Construction of a Dunwoody store is scheduled to start
within two months.
Back to the mysterious Bookears, newcomer
No. 2.
With 1,200 square feet, it is the smallest store in
the plaza, but it might make a big difference in the lives of its
customers.
Bookears, which opened June 18, sells and rents
taped books, with 5,000 audio books in stock. "That makes it
Atlanta's biggest store specializing in audio books," said owner
Suzanne Simkin.
Although other stores sell books on tape,
Simkin said she believes Bookears is the only place that handles
only book tapes and also rents them.
If you want to buy
"Jurassic Park," it's $16. A three-day rental is $2.99.
Motivational books, such as "The Road Less Traveled," are
not for rent. Its price: $49.95.
Said Simkin: "Those books
are to be listened to again and again. That's why we don't rent
them."
Although the store has a section of unabridged
recorded books, most books are trimmed, like a Reader's Digest for
the ears. Generally, listening time is about three hours.
"Just like with movies," said Simkin. "It's because that's
the maximum attention span."
Clearly, the idea has an
audience in the area.
"I love to read but I don't have time.
This is a great solution for me," said Carrol Schmidtkofer, 42, a
division manager at a directory distributor.
"I listen to
"Scarlet" every other month," said Schmidtkofer. "And it definitely
relieves stress while driving."
And it can be addictive, as
Schmidtkofer points out:
While driving back from Louisville,
she was listening to Sidney Sheldon's "Sands of Time" when the tape
player broke.
"I was so immersed in the story that I just
couldn't wait," said Schmidtkofer. She stopped at a store in
Chattanooga and bought a Walkman.
"I just had to know how
the story went on."
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