A source at the Meatland store at 1 Bar Ilan Street in Raanana, specializing in US-made goods, on Sunday confirmed to The Jewish Press that come September 1, the store will shut down. The source cited economic difficulties.
American ex-pats came to Meatland mainly for nostalgic reasons: American breakfast cereals, kosher candy, frozen gefilte fish, Heintz beans, Tofuti parve ice cream – everything one would find in the fridge of any observant family from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Meatland opened two decades ago as a pie store. It’s something they don’t tell you at Nefesh B’Nefesh: Israeli is not a pie country. Israelis consume huge amounts of baked goods, but for some reason, they don’t go for pie. Soon enough, Meatland moved on to include quality Argentine meat (hence the store’s name). They appealed to customers from the US, the UK, South Africa, South America, and Australia.
My daughter, who WhatsApped me the bad news Sunday morning, added an urgent note: “I need to buy pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce before they run out.”
Yes, folks, Thanksgiving is on the minds of some Israeli Americans all year round.
My source at Meatland said the owners were still looking for a buyer to take over the store. Otherwise, he was not able to point to anything like Meatland anywhere in the Jewish State.
And Canada Dry Ginger Ale.
