Bwog Daily Editor Eliza Shapiro investigates the sonic background of Westside Market.

It is fun to dance when you are drunk. It is fun to eat food when you are drunk. It is fun to do both these things very late at night. Westside Market lets you do it all: it is a bastion of hope lighting your late-night walk uptown, offering you myriad kinds of fruits you didn’t even know existed. Westside Market is not Morton Williams, and it is open when Koronet is not. Westside Market plays 70’s classics on repeat. Yeah, Bwog loves Westside Market.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the new Westside (yes, a mere 2 years ago everyone’s favorite supermarket was vacant: in transition mode between old, grotty Westside and new, fancy Westside) is its loop of danceable 70’s classics. At Westside, one is advised to remove their headphones and stock up on Chewy bars while basking in Carly Simon’s glow. Certainly, some of these songs could be considered kind of awful (you WILL hear Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” every time you enter) but most of them are probably secretly your favorite song of all time (Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”)

Westside manager Ian Joskowitz informed us that they play 97.8 FM on satellite loop (no commercials!) and explained simply that the playlist is “what I like.” Its also, he added, “what kids from Columbia grew up listening to, or were forced to listen to by their parents.” An employee at the salad bar chimed in “I love the music. Its beautiful.” Joskowitz explained that Westside tried other music: 80’s music, 90’s pop hits, but none of it worked and customers complained. He boasted that he is “yet to have a complaint” about the current loop: “we get compliments all the time.”