Swede Surrender

Hot Cakes: Flyer John LeClair serves breakfast at the Ikea South Philadelphia grand opening. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Getting taken for a spin in the world's newest Ikea store.

by Brian Howard

Ballyhooed hither and yon as something of a home-furnishing revolution for urban folk, the prophesied South Philly Ikea had more ink spilled over it than the City Hall bugging scandal. Finally, the citizenry of Greater Philadelphia — the site of Ikea's first U.S. store (in Plymouth Meeting) and its stateside headquarters — will be able to outfit their hearths and homes without making the unwieldy trek out on the Blue Route.

But was all the pomp and circumstance really necessary? Did we need a grand opening bonanza, with John LeClair serving pancakes and the promise of Mayor Street sawing a log in half, to usher in this brave new era of knockoff furniture design?

If the hundreds of would-be shoppers who lined half the perimeter of the block-long blue-and-yellow box store at 8 a.m. last Wednesday are any indication, Ikea South Philly could have been christened with little more than a bottle of grog and still have drawn throngs of people anxious to return home with a bookshelf they could call by name. The crowd was a demographic hodgepodge: black, white, Asian, young, old, very old. There were even a couple of trench-coat mafiosos who came with their own unsanctioned folding chairs.

People slept over, hoping to be one of the first 100 in line and thus receive a free Po…ng chair (the first shoppers emerged with theirs — and nothing else — not 10 minutes after the doors opened). Five winners of a Q102 radio contest received $2,000 gift certificates and the right to sleep over next to the building in Ikea-outfitted tents for two days before the doors opened. And yes, that was Philadelphia Flyer John LeClair serving blueberry pancakes to the five lucky radio contest winners — all perched awkwardly on a bedroom set on a sidewalk. Clearly none of these people were there for speeches or radio-station-sponsored balloon games.

When, surprise, Mayor Street didn't show (John Kerry was in town), LeClair also assisted with the Swedish answer to the ribbon-cutting ceremony: the sawing of a log. (Did he receive any pointers from teammate Kim Johnsson?) The log, however, was pre-sawed, leaving about 1 inch for the burly winger to cut. Flyers fans will perhaps rejoice that LeClair did not appear to injure himself in this endeavor. Still filling in for the mayor, he delivered a welcome speech — "This will be a great addition to the neighborhood here … I hope everybody enjoys shopping" — that rivaled post-game interviews for depth of insight. Perhaps we should all take this Ikea thing one day at a time … give 110 percent and hope the cart bounces the right way.

(Speaking of sports, would you care to take a guess at what the crowd chanted moments before the doors opened? Here's a hint: It wasn't "K-r-"-k-b-…-r, Kr"kb…r!" in appreciation of the $29.99 bedspread.)

And then it happened. With the log split, the doors opened and the crowd that had been waiting anxiously for hours and days — and through like three canned speeches — swarmed through the front doors toward an escalator to the finest flat-packaged chipboard furniture available for home assembly.

In one of the more touching moments of the morning, the first-in-liners were met by a sea of Team Ikea members — a duochrome rainbow of gold-and-blue polo shirts — clapping, cheering and dancing to the steel-drum grooves of local trio Rasa. Soon-to-be shoppers ascended the escalator while giving queen-of-England waves to their paid-to-be-admiring subjects. The royal treatment was not reserved for merely the first hundred shoppers. A half-hour later, people continued to stream into the store, and the diligent employees continued to bang their ruddy palms together as Rasa grooved to the indelible Buster Poindexter and His Banshees' hit "Hot Hot Hot."

Upstairs, in the one-way-through, just-like-every-other-Ikea showroom, the carefully choreographed grand opening devolved into bedlam. Shoppers gathered two- and three-deep around displays and lined up to try out chairs and beds. Employees scrambled to replenish rapidly depleting supplies. Distressed wanderers searched in vain for shortcuts through the labyrinth to the exit. Is this any way to shop?

During the opening ceremonies, Ikea awarded a $10,000 check to Greater Philadelphia Cares, a nonprofit that empowers volunteerism within the city's communities. It's safe to assume that Ikea made that back and then some.

By 9:30 a.m., some people were still waiting outside to get a crack at the loot. An ambulance outside was closing up its rear doors, preparing to carry someone — Did he or she shop till he or she dropped? — off to the hospital. Still, the end of the queue was nowhere in sight. As the media packed up and went home, the turnstiles continued to spin.

But when this feel-good afterglow subsides, we'll be forced to ask: What will Ikea South Philadelphia do in the future to differentiate itself from the company's other box stores? Is Ikea South Philadelphia an urban revolution, or is it just closer?