Dane fan Lars went to all the shops one more time: “Missed two”

He was only 17 years old when the Dane was taken over, but he already had a predilection for the supermarket chain. “I was a bit shocked when I heard the news of the takeover,” says Lars, who quickly puts it into perspective: “Yes, as a boy of 17 I couldn’t stop it either, hey.”

Lars decided to visit all the old Deen stores one last time. “I worked in the Dane’s distribution center and it was nice to see where I sent all the products,” says Lars.

The first stores to close were all in the area where Lars lives. A little later, shops further down the province also closed and even one in Zwolle. “A number of shops were very far away, but I wanted to finish the tour,” says Lars.

He was helped by his parents and grandparents, who drove Lars to the shops. “I would walk around the store, buy something small and take a picture”, Lars looks back. He has now made a photo album of all those photos. “That’s a nice keepsake,” Lars points to the book.

Before his photo tour, he asked the Dane for a list of which stores were going to close, but he didn’t get it. “I think they were afraid that I would go bargain hunting,” Lars laughs. Fortunately, he worked at the distribution center, where he could see which stores were closing that week. Because he could only plan a week in advance, it became difficult to visit all the stores.

Missed shop

Looking in his photo book Lars turns a page, here is a photo with only his parents in the Dane. “I missed the store in Zwolle, just like the one in Dronten,” says Lars. His parents, who were in the vicinity of Zwolle at the time, did drive to the Dane and then took a photo for Lars. “At Dronten I pasted a photo from the internet in the book. It’s a shame, because that was the only Dane with Deen sunblinds”, Lars knows.

flags

A year later, Lars still sometimes thinks about the Dane. In his closet he has a shelf full of merchandise. “I sometimes look at that and then I think back to the Dane with nostalgia,” says Lars. On a shelf is everything from model cars to marbles, Lars has it. His proudest possession is two flags that should hang in front of a branch. “My mom knew someone at HQ and she brought it for me,” Lars says, adding that no one probably has it anymore.

big fan

When Lars is asked why he is actually a fan of the Dane, he can’t quite explain it. “Hmmmm, it’s a bit of a feeling. It feels a bit like a trusted neighbor disappearing”, Lars feels. He explains that he lived right next to a branch and that there was a Dane in almost every village in West Friesland. “In secondary school I always went to the Dane in the afternoon. Now I also work there, it was just always there,” Lars notes.

Lars has therefore seen all but two of the old Deen shops, he thinks the most beautiful is the Deen on the Vredehof in Hoorn. “This is mainly because I often went there during my breaks. Other beautiful branches I find in Limmen and IJburg,” says Lars. Still, Lars is disappointed that he missed two stores, but he can put this into perspective. “The stores will probably look a lot like the others,” Lars laughs. At the end of the tour he could blindly find everything in the Deen stores. “Everything was in roughly the same place, except for the frying fat, which was in a different location at almost every branch.”