Grocery store blues

It's a tough holiday season at the Point's two grocery stores as staffs prepare for the imminent departure of long-time mainstays.

At Santa Fe Market, Bernadette Ayers' last day is the 28th. The moving van comes on the 29th and on the 30th she's off to Memphis with hubby and kids. What will Santa Fe Market do without her? "Pray," said Marie Peckham, the store matriarch. "We'll be lost." Everyone knows a few pieces of the store's operation, but no one knows it all like Bernadette.

Moods are brighter over at Mo's, a.k.a. Point Richmond Market. In mid January, Sophia Warith leaves for graduate school at University of Nevada at Las Vegas--and she's being replaced by no one at all. She's been doing the ordering and much of the cashiering, not to mention secretary of the Point Richmond Business Association. She could have gone to Stanford, as her sister Fatoum (owner of Prego Pizzeria) wanted her to. She could have gone to University of California at Davis, as she leaned toward at one time. Why Vegas? The university has a good public administration department, she said.