La Bodega is a rising star of a liquor store here in Anchorage. Their mission seems to be to provide Alaskans with an excellent selection of beers from the state, country, and world over. Saturday was their last day in their original location – they’re expanding into to a bigger space, and will be neighbors to Cafe Amsterdam; an established restaurant with its own amazing beer selection.
When we visited the old location for the last time, something struck a chord in my memories. La Bodega was located in the University Center, which used to be a bustling mall in the 70s and 80s. Like most malls in Anchorage, it’s now become a ghost town, and nearly all of the stores are gone. Once there was a large supermarket, either a Carrs or Safeway, and the space La Bodega has occupied for the last few years was where grocery store’s liquor department was located (in Alaska liquor cannot be sold inside of grocery stores). Looking up at the old, mounted letters near the ceiling, I was taken back to my childhood. Inside the old grocery store, similar letters had hung around the perimeter of the store announcing “cheese”, “produce”, and the like.
It’s strange how a typeface can whisk you away to a different era, but something about those quirky, serif letters took me back to 1983. Even their creamy yellow color and the brown painted wood behind them seem to be original. They look so retro now. I wonder, what popular design styles today will look so oddly out of place, yet so deliciously memorable, thirty years from now?
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