With sudden swiftness, Treasure Island Foods became a desert island corporation. While the family and locally owned Treasure Island Foods had seven locations after fifty-five years in business, its hand-selling (“European-style”) brand was lost in the bristling local expansion of the grocery industry, with its razor-thin margins, and the home-delivery boom. The high-priced Treasure Island brand evokes only one memory for me, a paltry one. In the recesses of post-Vietnam War Chicago Old Town culture, “Bagtime,” a musical of dubious quality japing about the 1970s dating scene (and one of Bob Falls’ earliest directorial outings). With less than two weeks notice, Treasure Island told its employees they would be out of work. (Unions and produce suppliers are among those lining up to sue the company.) “We have done everything we could to attempt to get the company on solid ground to try to operate for another fifty-five years,” CEO Maria Kamberos wrote to employees, “given the current industry conditions, it has been impossible for us to continue to operate without losing money.” (Ray Pride)
