Category Archives: Strange Holidays

Rainbow Grocery, my local worker-owned co-op vegetarian grocery store, has a reputation for being a little bit alternative, in every way. It’s the polar opposite of a cookie-cutter Safeway – the heavily tattooed guy with pierced cheeks who helps me find bulk maple syrup, the fact that it HAS bulk maple syrup (and bulk Hawaiian black salt, mesquite flour, and Inca berries, among other things), the lengthy co-op meetings debating whether they should carry Israeli products in light of the Palestinian genocide. I also love the irreverent and also hilarious descriptions of their various products on their handwritten labels. So in light of all this, I guess it’s not too surprising that that Rainbow is celebrating Hallowe’en this year with a candy display featuring lifelike dismembered limbs and body parts. I was quite impressed…and though I’m not sure what this says about San Francisco or our expectations of Rainbow, it’s worth nothing that none of the other shoppers seemed to give the display a second look.
-AidanAbroad