Exactly. There uses to be a great local music in a wide variety of genres, but that hasn’t been the case for decades (no pun). But in general, they were centered around the universities, primarily Pitt / CMU, with tons of small venues with an easy bus ride or walk from the campuses, but then the real estate prices went up significantly because the universities (and UPMC) were expanding, so the owners sold, and there were no venues to take their place.

There are some, farther out into the ‘burbs, but those are fewer and farther between.

That’s pretty much where we are. There are 1 or 2 Table Service in each park we like (and not always the popular ones), and we’ll do lunches there, but for dinners, we always go to a restaurant in a resort near the park we’ve been in all day, in the resort we’re staying, or at Disney Springs.

This is why I don’t get fast food at WDW - if I’m going to get gouged, I at least want good food, and if possible, someone to bring it to me.

I live in the East End, and I used to get one every few months, starting at the beginning of lockdown, from someone in Swissvale. It might have been the same JW’s that would show up every few months on Sundays.

Or, in my case, Silver Star kielbasa.

Good point, could be a security guard. If he works for that private contracting company, I wouldn’t be surprised, they’ll hire anyone who doesn’t have a criminal record (I know, I used to work for one, they even hired me, and apparently I was the cream of the crop compared to my co-workers, even at what was considered a ‘plum’ assignment), so a guard randomly harassing shoppers seems about par for the course.

I go in there fairly often, a couple of times a week, and I’ve never seen an older black man greeter. If he wasn’t handing out flyers, was he in GE clothing? He may have just been some random obnoxious dude hanging out by the entrance (I’ve seen several instances of that) who decided for whatever reason to harass you.

So, a possible reason why they have a greeter:

Some GEs are owned by corporate, some are ‘franchises’, the Edgewood location is a franchise; found this out by asking at another GE, a ‘corporate’ one, why their location didn’t have the same products as the Edgewood one, and that was the reason that Customer Service gave me, that ‘franchises’ have a lot more individual control over what they stock. So that store’s franchisee, or their manager, has decided to have a greeter, for whatever reason. Maybe at the beginning of Covid it was to check for mask-wearing and dispensing disinfectant supplies and decided to keep them?

When I’ve gone there, the only greeters I’ve seen are either an older, tall, skinny, balding white man - I think he’s the manager? - or any one of a half-dozen older white women, who usually hand out the flyer with the week’s sales. They also usually have security there too, most often a guy from a contract place, but sometimes off-duty cops from either the county or Edgewood Borough.

As for why you got treated as you do, no idea; I’ve always worn a mask going in since Covid first hit and that’s never happened to me, and I’ve never seen any of them ‘lecture’ anyone of any presenting gender; at most, they’ve just said “Hi, would you like a flyer”, maybe occasionally talking up a particular sale, once I heard a “Go Steelers” before a particularly important game upcoming.

So I’m going to have to go with 4. None of the above, it was something else.

Tom's is great, I used to live around the corner and it was great, I went in a couple times a week.

Now that I live on the opposite side of town, I only go there for specialty items, like specific meats (just ordered my turkey the other day), because when there's zero traffic it's 20 minutes each way.

Tru dat. I’ve been going to Phantom since the third week they were open, before Jeff was even an employee. When I cut back on my visits and pulls - moving away from Oakland, mostly - Jeff and Wayne would always put aside things they knew I’d want, no charge. Somewhere I still have a few of their bucks, with Steve Ditko on them.

I don’t know about current ownership, but Greg Eide was a complete POS, to both customers and staff, from when he opened it in the 70s until the day he died. And treating customers like they should feel blessed to be allowed into the establishment was something he instilled in his employees.

I haven’t been there since Greg died, so I can’t say whether that’s still the attitude the staff has.

Oooh, I used to go to a Korvette’s with my mom, near-ish our house when I was growing up. We’d always park on the ‘ground’ floor, because it gave cover from the upper parking deck - kinda like the parking ‘garage’ at Century III - and there were offices / services on the top floor that always intrigued me, because we never went there.