'Waitresses… where do we get them? No, Waitrose. What? Is it a gay club?'

Published on Thursday 12 November 2009 20:09

IF SHOPPING is the new religion then Waitrose is, in the words of Professor Harvie Ferguson, as he gazed enraptured by the array of bottled olive oils on display, simply "Heaven".

Yesterday morning the lecturer in sociology at Glasgow University, whose research interests include the "Intellectual and Cultural Genealogy of Modernity", was at last roaming the aisles of the long-awaited culinary establishment which had touched down, like the spacecraft of an enlightened retailer, at the top of Glasgow's Byres Road.

At 8:30 am, a crowd of around 30 had already gathered to be, like Richard Dreyfuss at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the first inside the new mothership.

Prof Ferguson had come along a little later, but confessed he had waited two years for its arrival. A local shopper who purchased his provisions day by day and who had already stocked up on ricotta cheese and White Wonder apples from Suffolk, not to mention a mango and lychee smoothie, the Professor said he was attracted by "variety, quality and convenience" and added: "this is a great place for the people of the West End who want to spend more than they need to for food."

However they do get to spend it in style. Waitrose equips shoppers with their own 'Star Trek phaser', allowing them to 'zap' items as they go and so by-pass the tedium of the check-out queue in favour of a fast-pay customer service counter. Sweet. Oh and as for the price, as a variety of managers attested, Waitrose isn't that expensive and some items, such as the small tub of potato salad that was fetched for my inspection, was, allegedly at 78p, as cheap, if not cheaper than anywhere else. (For the record thorough research by the wife of a colleague discovered that Animal Zoo biscuits were, she suspected, twice the price compared with Lidl but the nappy cream half the price of the Co-op.)

I was, I should now admit, less than pleased to be feigning interest in a small tub of potato salad at an early hour and this is because Scotland, I now know, is a divided nation and I, sadly, inhabit the wrong and rocky outcrop.

On one side there are those domestic gods and goddesses for whom the very letters of W-A-I-T-R-O-S-E are as chiselled by angels. You know who you all are, the ones that punched the air with delight and leapedto fetch the hemp shopping bags and woven baskets as soon as Waitrose or, to use its full name: The Celestial Shopping Experience first opened its doors in Edinburgh's Morningside a few years ago.

You, of course, were all too aware that the stores are employee-owned businesses; that they championed local and regional suppliers; and that they devote all their energy to sourcing only the very finest produce in the world, even if, as I was told yesterday, this involves spending three years on the development of a Waitrose-tinned tomato. Boy, how good must that tinned tomato be?

You become visibly aroused at the thought of being able to purchase Gigha Island Halibut and content yourself that all the super-friendly staff enjoy profit share deals (this year the equivalent of 13 per cent of their salary) and have access to a range of Waitrose holiday homes – even if you do feel slightly sorry that they are all in rain-sodden Britain as opposed to say, Barbados.

On the other side are those of us for whom Waitrose is, er, how can I put this without enraging fans, well, just a supermarket? Granted one that doesn't insist on forcing you to watch Richard Hammond trundling across the countryside with a shopping trolley when we all know he should be firmly locked in the child's seat, but a supermarket nonetheless. When first told about my early morning task I couldn't quite work out the assignment: 'shop opens in Glasgow'? Those on the other side simply shook their heads and said: "Waitrose isn't just a supermarket". Why, is it a super-dupermarket?

Granted, once inside the confines of the celestial mothership it was easy to be swayed by the converts, especially when in the form of an old friend, Fiona Wingate, a notable foodie, who was touring the aisles with her ten-month-old daughter, Honey, and who wore the delighted expression of an exceptionally naughty child with a back-door key to Santa's grotto. "Look" she exclaimed fishing into her shopping bag: "the height of laziness – pre-peeled quail's eggs!" She was rapturous about the fish counter and had already liberated monkfish, skate and squid. "We've all been very excited about the opening" she said about her friends. "It's all we've been talking about – I bet M&S is deserted!"

The desire to sock it to M&S was a feeling that pervaded the staff. If I heard M&S is "quiet" from one, I heard it from them all. If Asda and Tesco are the working class bruisers trying to club each other to death with drastic price cuts, and irritating adverts Waitrose and M&S are gentlemen duellers, respectable in public, but still anxious to shoot the other in the back, albeit with a pearl-handled revolver.

While I'm pleased that the Byres Road branch will be stocking 250 Scottish lines including products from the Glasgow-Green based brewery, I was disappointed that it didn't extend to Scottish cod or haddock. The fish counter had a number of tempting wares including Fresh Anglesey Sea Bass and Fresh Greek sea bream but it appears that, sadly, our cod and haddock aren't quite up to those caught, by line in Iceland. According to one of the managers whom I lightly grilled, but did not at any point, drizzle in oil, our fish can be excellent but lack consistency but if Scottish cod of a similar standard can be sourced they too could be chilling on a bed of ice in Byres Road. However one wonders that given the state of Iceland's economy whether the loss of such a contract could sink the nation.

Yet not everyone was delighted by the arrival of Waitrose. The store, in a novel touch, has enlisted three rickshaw bikes whose riders will pedal home free anyone who has spent over 20 and lives within a one mile radius. Squeezed into the seat and under the protective canopy was Marion Wilson, husband Mudassar and daughter, Sophia, laden with bags and delighted by the store. "It's excellent and utilitarian," said he. "It's terrific but just how much am I going to spend, she asked." While, to the driver, one elderly gentlemen said: "Are you aware that you are parked on a double yellow line? Have you permission? I'll be speaking to the traffic wardens."

Then he was off, marching down Byres Road until he found two traffic wardens whom he quizzed on the legalities of bicycle rickshaws. "I'm afraid there is nothing we can do," said one warden. "If they don't have a licence plate we can't give them a ticket. It's a problem and I'd happily have them lifted but there is nothing we can do."

"Alright – I'll go back up and check if they have licence plates," he harrumphed, then he was off again.

Walking back up towards the store, I pass a trio of men re-surfacing the road and ask their views on the magical emporium of line-caught cod, half bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne and the arrival of produce from the Handmade Meringue Company.

"Waitresses," said Colin Armstrong, "Where and how do we get them?"

"No, Waitrose," I enquired.

"What? Is it a gay club?"

"No. It's a supermarket."

It turns out that the trio's loyalties lie elsewhere. David Anderson is an Asda man, Armstrong favours Tesco and their colleague John Brady also favours Asda.

"It will keep the West Enders happy then," said Armstrong. "They'll like that here." When I ask what they look for in a supermarket, Mr Anderson said quality food at the right prices while Armstrong jokingly said pretty check out girls and a quiet Thursday night: "That's when I shop and don't take the wife."

While Waitrose offers "Forgotten cuts" such as 'pigs cheeks", "shanks" and "ox cheeks" which, I was assured by Andrew Schramm, the meat specialist, have proved particularly popular with the matrons of Morningside, especially during the current recession, across Byres Road at the hot dog stand, the meat was perhaps not as choice but remarkably tasty. Duncan Robertson has sold his hotdogs (1.50 for students and OAPs) for the past two years and is, as you might expect, relaxed about his new neighbour. "I will be checking it out but I know a few of the shopkeepers are worried that it will dampen business, but we'll see."

For Jim, the local Big Issue seller, who has the hallowed laminated pass that marks his territory as "Waitrose, Byres Road" it was still too early to tell if sales and tips would rise with the quality of the establishment. "I've got this patch as I was outside Somerfield before, but see that bag over there?" he said, pointing to a plastic bag tucked under an advertising hoarding. "Someone else has been here already, they're after this patch. I'm waiting for them to come back and then I'll tell them to sling their hook."

Waitrose, more than a supermarket, is he believes, worth the fight.