Remembering Brilliant Food Emporium & D'Agostinos Supermarket Commercials

Imagine a powerful ballad, requiring a singer of great vocal power, a wall of sound with violins swelling in the background, a full musical blast of profundity -- and imagine it's about groceries. Living in NYC in the late 20th century, you couldn't get away from it -- the Food Emporium supermarket "jingle" that was so much more than just a jingle. It was a statement. It was belief system. It was an identity. It moved your soul and gave you chills. It began with the great lyrics, "Someone made a store just for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Someone has my kind of QUALITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" Yes, this supermarket didn't just sell you milk and produce and and canned food, etc. -- it understood you, it cared about you, it took you into its warm embrace and loved you. These commercials saturated the NYC airwaves back in the day, and Food Emporiums were all over town. Before Whole Foods, before Trader Joes, Food Emporium was the classy, yuppie shopping joint for New Yorkers -- and its jingle emphasized this fact with relish (which you could also, presumably, buy at Food Emporium). 

Then there was D'Agostinos. This was another sorta high-end grocery store ubiquitous around NYC back in the day. It also had memorable commercials but they didn't use emotion or appeals to one's higher nature -- they used sex. (D'Agostino's even went a little further in branding itself -- besides its commercials, D'Agastino was famous for its shopping bags called "D'Ag Bags.") But back to the sex: each commercial was about how much people loved D'Agastinos, how people couldn't get enough of D'Agastinos, how D'Agastinos gave its customers so much pleasure. And then the commercials would end with some sultry-sounding dame chanting, "Please, Mr. D'Agostino, move closer to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ..." That Mr. D'Agastino was quite the player! I guess the purpose of these commercials was to make its customers believe that shopping there would get them laid -- or at least get Mr. D'Agastino laid, it was rather confusing. 

As you note, both supermarket chains emphazed ME in their commercials -- me, in this case, being you or us.

Food Emporium and D'Agastinos are still around NYC but are much diminished. No longer mighty and sprawling chains of stores, they are pockmocked around the five boroughs, here and there. I haven't seen or heard any commercials for them recently but I'll always remember these great jingle, these great appeals to our emotions and loins, to get us to pony up for grub.