“The old Fairway is to the current Fairway as, let me think, like the best live music you've ever been to versus the annoying toy that your baby has that plays a jingle.”
Freakonomics Radio · Ideas & Essays · October 2026
Howard, a food writer who once worked at Fairway, was describing what is left of the New York grocery chain after a private equity buyout and bankruptcy. She called the stores serviceable places to buy things, but no longer a site of glory and excitement.
Transcript
They're serviceable places to buy some things that you might need, but they are no longer the site of like glory and excitement.
That's Hannah Howard again.
The old Fairway is to the current Fairway as, let me think, like the best live music you've ever been to versus the annoying toy that your baby has that plays a jingle.
There is blame to go all around here. It's not blame on my family. It's not blame on management. It's not blame on our private equity partners. It's blame to everybody. Like we screwed this up. We screwed it up. All of us. We were just completely reactionary to any issue that popped up in the…
I think fundamentally, these people with just dollar signs as their goal plundered something really wonderful. A
lot of people have blamed private equity. Very few people have blamed management. And I think at the end of the day, what I really want to say is an apology. I want to apologize to our customers. I want to apologize to our employees who worked so hard to make the Fairway experience what it was. And…
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