Pavilions doesn't want me as a customer either

Inasmuch as we are all supposed to be social and "friends" and stuff, and businesses are supposed to engage with us, apparently we are supposed to treat our relationships with businesses as personal relationships.

If this is the case, then we are often jilted.

I have recently written about the fact that Foursquare doesn't want me to use its services. Now it's not like someone at Foursquare was sitting at a desk and saying, "We have to get this Bredehoft guy off our service." But when Foursquare changed its rules to prevent mobile web users from earning mayorships, that's exactly what they did.

So I began wondering about other companies who don't want me as a customer. And I immediately thought of one - Pavilions.

For those of you who don't live in southern California, Pavilions is a Safeway-owned grocery chain that seeks to be the upper-class cousin to Vons, which is also owned by Safeway.

There used to be a Pavilions in my area. Ironically, it was probably about halfway between Yogurtime Upland and My Delight Cupcakery.

But, not too long after the southern California grocery strike, that Pavilions closed its doors (although it took longer for this to happen than I originally expected).

Yet Pavilions still continues to send advertisements to me, even though they demonstrated that they don't want me as a customer. After all, if they wanted me as a customer, they would spend the thousands upon thousands of dollars required to keep that store open.

I guess they didn't want me that much.

Compare this with, say, Walmart, who has been fighting for years to open a store next to me. I guess they want me.

In the process of writing this post, I went to pavilions.com and used its store locator. I figured that if they really wanted me, they'd come to my house with limo service (Pavilions is, after all, a high-end store) and drive me to the nearest Pavilions.

So where is the nearest Pavilions? I used the Pavilions store locator, which identified the three nearest Pavilions to my home. Here they are:

Vons
82 West Foothill Blvd
Upland, CA 91786
Store Phone: 909-981-7709
Store Hours: 5:00 AM-Midnight

Vons
550 E. Baseline Rd .
Claremont, CA 91711
Store Phone: 909-621-4644
Store Hours: 5:00 AM - Midnight

Vons
8778 19TH St.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701
Store Phone: 909-989-1000
Store Hours: 5:00 AM - Midnight

Notice anything unusual about this list of the three nearest Pavilions to my home?

Yup, that's right - none of them is a Pavilions. In fact, I had to go to store number 14 on the list to find a Pavilions that is actually a Pavilions.

Pavilions
8010 E. Santa Ana Canyon Rd
Anaheim Hills, CA 92808
Store Phone: (714) 282-7064
Store Hours: 6:00 AM - Midnight

Now I may work in Orange County, but I don't necessarily want to buy my groceries there. Pavilions isn't THAT special, and the fact that Pavilions' own store finder suggests that Vons is just as good as Pavilions kind of cements that lack of specialness.