Kyle Chayka: What can I say about Foxtrot except that it was too good to be real? It was a kind of Blank Street Coffee version of a bodega. The chain of minimalist-branded grocery stores, primarily located in Chicago and DC, sold the kinds of direct-to-consumer goods that you could usually only find online. Graza potato chips. Vegan gummy bears. Brooklyn Biltong (whatever that is). Vaguely natural wine that doesn’t say which grapes are in it. Also you could get a smoothie or a breakfast taco or a cappuccino or a draft beer. It felt a bit like if you automated the European-ness of cafe culture, codified dolce-far-niente into a casual coworking space. Even if you were drinking during the day, you were supposed to be hustling.
There was a Foxtrot on the actual corner of my block in DC, at least until today, when the entire company abruptly shut down and immediately closed all of its stores. (The previous tenant in that spot was a Philz where, rumor had it, someone got stabbed with the bagel cutter on the counter.) Ultimately, Foxtrot was floating on a tide of venture capital: It raised somewhere around $180 million to disrupt where 20-somethings got their salads, or something. There was an app, fast delivery, and loyalty points. Like WeWork, it expanded hugely and then proved overextended, or they underestimated the desire for brightly packaged snack foods that cost fifty percent more than their less graphic design-heavy alternatives. Honestly, I’ll miss it. In a city that doesn’t have nearly enough corner stores, it was a place where you could spend $10-20 on a bag of little treats that felt tuned to your life. One time, I walked 30 seconds from my apartment, picked up a block of manchego immediately before a dinner party, and brought my dog in, who was blessed with a pup cup full of whipped cream. Utopia in our time!
Foxtrot offered more varieties of canned beverages than you knew existed in the world. You could buy Portuguese tinned fish and Spanish chorizo, or Soylent powder and CBD seltzer. It encompassed the range of millennial lifestyle values, from desiccated efficiency to artisanal quality. In that way it was innovative. But in its universality, it also meant nothing, evanescing like vapor. As with so many things in the 21st century, the problem was not the concept so much as the overambitious execution, trying to do everything, everywhere, at once. We didn’t ask for this; it was just that some executive, somewhere, convinced enough people that it was worth blowing many millions of dollars to attempt to deliver it. All that remains on its website is a goodbye message that ends, “We would like to thank our many partners, without whom we would not have been able to build such a strong brand.” And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do, in the end, to build a strong brand?
I just walked out to the shell of the former Foxtrot on the corner. A woman was sitting at one of its outdoor tables, reading a book in the sun. A dog walker said he’d miss it, but they deserved the shutdown for selling $10 bottles of sparkling water. A passerby wondered aloud who would steal the unguarded outdoor furniture. The riches of venture-capital investment are often redistributed in unexpected and wondrous ways. Personally I hope a Tatte moves in.
Nate Gallant: I had long been skeptical of Foxtrot. The black and far too white aesthetic. Price tags I did not need to see to know they were too expensive for the goods. And the store in Dupont Circle which seemed to be claiming some kind of stolen valour for local convenience, built directly under a sign from a long-dead AM/PM. But I was walking through downtown Bethesda a few months ago, which looks like an essentially unbroken upscale stripmall, and wanted something to eat that was not Tacombi (a previously unthinkable import) or gas station candy. I gave in, walked into Foxtrot and found myself immediately overwhelmed by all of the snacks, bougie condiments, and probiotic sodas I had been wanting to try for months but could not find anywhere else in DC. It was like a Milk Street storefront, a sort of consumable toystore for adults who didn't mind occasionally spending $5 on a soda or a bag of chips.
I will miss the location nearest me now that all of their DC (not to mention Texas and Illinois) locations are all suddenly and unceremoniously closing. Yet this is not an elegy for something unique or necessary, but deeply frivolous. Who needs a $13 coffee date smoothie, with a little bit of miso thrown in for good measure and a surprising burst of umami? (Sandwich board signs advertised the drink this spring.) Who needs four different kinds of upscale gummies? (Nevertheless, the black currant ones are my favorite candy in the entire world.) Who even really needs a chain of "provisions" stores with expensive wine and Momofuku sauces, when, as Washingtonian food critic Jessica Sidman points out, there are several better options around town, from Odd Provisions to Nido?
No one. But it was, however, very un-DC to have an excess of dumb fun in what is ostensibly a grocery store. It did also, perhaps reluctantly for some, fill a gap in the bizarre grocery store economy in DC, a major American city where many people are still not within walking distance of a grocery or decent prepared food options. There are no real bodegas, and there are, separately, very real food deserts in parts of the city. The Safeways and Whole Foods and Walgreens have, as of late, securitized mightily, installing metal detectors and armed security guards and a general sense of panic in their stores throughout the city. So, Foxtrot felt necessary, even as it was so banally luxurious and superfluous. Now I have no idea where I’ll buy a passable protein poptart.
Previously on One Thing: A selection of jazz for the Spring season, including a hand-curated Spotify playlist that will provide ambient vibes for any dinner party.