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The whole state of SC only has 2 Apple stores, Charleston and Greenville. Columbia with 800K in its metro doesn’t have one.
Charleston does have some stores that other metros our size don’t have, like Louis Vuitton and a big Forever 21, but King Street has the majority of them. The suburban areas are like any other Southern metro area.
The Charleston area only has one Olive Garden, in North Charleston which usually has an hour-long wait on weekend evenings, no Cheesecake Factory, just got its 2nd Costco last year, one Sam’s Club, no TopGolf or Dave & Busters.
Apple opened in Charleston in 2008. It was a huge deal when it opened. There were lines for blocks down King Street.
Most of the restaurants or stores that come into the Charleston area go to Mt. Pleasant or Summerville first. We just got Culver’s earlier this year in Summerville up on 17A.
There’s only one Trader Joe’s in the area, in Mt. Pleasant, and you can go there almost any time of day and it is packed. We just got our 2nd Whole Foods last year in West Ashley after Mt. Pleasant had one dating all the way back to 2004.
Charleston is still growing out of its shell, even though we have international air service now 7 months a year (non-stop to Heathrow in London via British Airways). When Charleston got Southwest Airlines (2011), right after Boeing opened their plant (2010), it was a game-changer. What was a dormant tourist area for 2-3 months a year (December-February) is now busy all 12 months.
I think Ikea, Apple, Cheesecake Factory, and Costco are good measures for a metro's arrival. These are the type of places that people travel for and bemoan not having.
Miami
Dallas
New York
Toronto
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Vancouver
That's IT!
Super Prestigious Surprised Chicago and Houston don't have one.
Balenciaga has boutiques within department stores in Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.
As far as their stand alone boutiques, I am not sure why their selectivity leaves out the above mentioned cities, but I don't think any of the non Balenciaga regions are more or less "arrived" (except New York).
The problem with using grocers for this measure is that their store location decisions aren't just determined by where demand from customers is. Instead, they're even more determined by supply and logistics considerations -- where their distribution networks get deliver fresh food.
Wegman's own store distribution map helpfully shows that its expansion from WNY down the Mid-Atlantic and into VA/NC was made possible by opening a giant distribution center in Pennsylvania.
The same kind of goes for, say, IKEA. Especially at first, they tended to expand sequentially from their existing stores, because furniture (even flat-packed) is costly to haul. Apparel isn't difficult to ship, but its sellers often like to go into a market with multiple locations to maximize the bang for their logistics buck (e.g., advertising dollars). Uniqlo definitely does this, and Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom used to.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are accessories like jewelry, which are are light and easy to ship. So a pricey jeweler can go wherever she thinks there are sufficient customers -- hence those shops tend to cluster in not just big and rich cities, but also tourist destinations favored by the rich. But few would argue that Aspen or Southampton or Palm Beach was more important than Minneapolis or Dallas just because of a single shop.
Four Seasons. - Top tier (These are only found in the top world class destinations in the world)
Apple. Whole Foods. - Mid tier (These are not common, but common within the right demographics. For example Lancaster, Pennsylvania has both a Whole Foods and Apple Store) (And Wegmans and Costco and West Elm for that matter)
Ikea. - Mid/upper tier (These are reserved only for larger metro areas that have truly stated they are cosmopolitan and urban) Fun fact: Ikea North America is Headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Which is the location of the first North America Ikea back in the late 80s.
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