Locals reveal their dating secrets from the old Social Safeway

When asked if he ever tried to get a date on Friday night at The Social Safeway, Donald Sigmund replied, “not just Friday night, every night.” “I started shopping at Social Safeway in 1976 when I started working at Tramp’s (a now defunct sports bar),” said PR gal Linda Roth. “I have been shopping there regularly since I moved to Georgetown in 1999. It was the kind of grocery store where you had to look decent when you ventured out as you were always likely to run into someone you knew – and sometimes it was an old boyfriend!” “My kids were raised in two places,” said author and political journalist Myra MacPherson. “The Social Safeway and The Smithsonian. The laughable thing to me was how people dressed for it or at least put on make up for fear they would run into someone they knew-- which happened all the time. I can remember a Georgetown real estate woman--who had black black hair like the wicked queen in snow white - who saw me without her face on and ducked behind the rutabagas and actually hid! Of course the Kay Grahams of the world sent their help.” How do you know when it’s ripe was a common pick up line at the old “Social Safeway” located slightly above the residential section of Georgetown. When that didn’t work, (hey, why would it?) the melon guy ended up behind you at the register where phone numbers eventually changed hands. “I moved to 3323 R Street in the spring of '71,” said socialite Tandy Dickerson, ‘and shopped at the original Safeway on Wisconsin about a block away. After shopping, I would drive up in my coral Pontiac LeMans convertible to pick up my grocery bags, and still remember how nice the

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men were when they placed those bags into the back seat. Ever pleasant and always smiling, those men were sincere and happy about their job and their customers. Would give a fortune to have those days back!” “In the OLDEN days.” said Carol Joynt of The New York Social Diary’s Washington page, “absolutely nothing remarkable - either social or sexual - ever happened to me there. alas.” Obviously she didn’t shop on a Friday night. The best thing about the old Safeway for Politics Daily columnist Annie Groer was not the dating. “For my father's 100th birthday, I ordered a most outrageous sheet cake ever: Intense devil's food frosted with uber-rich dark chocolate topped by neon orange, purple and turquoise flowers with leaves the color of a putting green. It was doubly spectacular because the bakery ladies got totally into doing something fab for the century-old birthday boy”. As for newly minted Georgetowner Marilyn Thompson? “Can't wait to check out the new Social Safeway--it sounds like an adult Disneyland for food and wine lovers with a little Club Med thrown in for the social set! I wonder if Match.com memberships will go down locally when it opens!" Georgetowners took a take a trip down memory lane Wednesday night at a Gala Evening celebrating the return of Washington, D.C.’s most famous grocery store ...err., dating service.