[how do they even enforce that?]

A couple of nights ago I dreamt that I discovered a British store near my house.The catch?They only wanted British people to shop there.Weird, no?

However, this isn't as odd as you would think. There used to be a British  grocery store near where my parents live..I  had what can only be called a love-hate affair with the place. I loved that I could get all of the  British candy and whatnot that I loved..I hated the service.

Let me expand on that a bit, if I may:The service, depending on who was working there was good(there was one lady who was always very chatty and had time to talk and was very helpful) and then another woman(the owner?) who was permagrumpy.

Apparently, this sort of service was common at all 3 branches of the British Foods Store(2 in Northern California and one  in Southern California) from what I read of their reviews on Yelp. All 3 of the stores are now closed,which shocked me since they are a chain it stands to reason that they would try to stay open where at all possible.

The problem was that they were all 3 in marginal areas-two of them were in strip malls that were hard to access.The one by my parents' house was accessible enough.

I suspect some of the issues behind their closing(apart from so-so service and being in a less-than-desirable location) was the sparseness of their shelves.They could be downright bare at times, and when asked the owners would say that it was going to be at least a couple of weeks before they got anything new in. Umm what? Not only that, they would frequently put food that was slightly out of date on sale. Not enough that it would hurt you if you ate it, but according to at least one person on Yelp the food was out of date enough that they tried to take it back and do an exchange and were told they couldn't. I mean, you can say "yeah, they bought expired food,they were taking a chance doing that" but still..

Going back to the beginning of this post though: I  can relate to that dream though, since I certainly felt unwelcome at the British Foods store on more than one occasion.

My favourite British grocery store in San Diego?Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe which is across a courtyard from the Shakespeare Pub(big surprise there!).It's  well stocked and they have stuff from India, Ireland,Scotland,Australia and a few other places. Plus, they have the Union Jack(newspaper for Brits in the UK which started here in San Diego) available for whoever wants it. Whenever I would go to the British Foods  Store they would make you buy something to get it.Ironic given that it's a free newspaper.