I'm a Jackson native who moved away at 18 to go to college and only recently returned last year (after 12 years of living in Mount Pleasant, Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor and, later, the Oakland County area). While Oakland County and the Ann Arbor area are synonymous with boutique markets, Jackson - as an aging population of predominantly lower working middle-class folk - has a dearth of local grocery stores. Essentially, it's Walmart, Meijer, Kroger and Target. If you're looking to avoid chains, it's rather difficult.
The exception to the hegemonic dominance of chains is Polly's. They're a chain in the loosest sense of the word; it's a local cluster of groceries in Jackson, Brooklyn, Chelsea and Dexter. There are three locations in Jackson (one in the rest). As a kid, Polly's was pure Jackson. The store on Spring Arbor Road had this old, rustic feel. We used to park in their parking lot and sit in the back of a pick-up truck during the 4th of July, as the fireworks could be seen from Cascades.
I just went back to this location for the first time in at least twenty years, and it looks exactly the same as I remember (with mild renovations on the inside). Unsurprisingly, the hot food bar was mostly comfort food/soul food. I purchased a half pound of macaroni salad, which was rather cheap and relatively tasty. While there, I also noticed an older gentleman trying to grift the system by taking premium pre-bagged grapes and placing them in bags to be weighed out as generic produce.
They have a good selection of Great Lakes Chips, which are hit-or-miss around here. Their prepared foods and in-house baked goods were incredibly cheap. It's certainly not an all-star, home run kinda thing. But it feels quite...quaint. It's very Jackson-y. I'm glad it still exists. read more
