Kramer’s Korner: Hey Amarillo, Be More Open Minded Would Ya?

Ok Amarillo, we're a decent sized city right? Over 200,000 people that live here and growing. The appeal to Amarillo is that in general, it's a relatively affordable place to live and that's a big deal right now as costs across the country continue to rise.

As a city grows in population, it needs to grow in businesses as well right? There has been plenty going up lately, but as we've discussed, it's a lot of the same stuff over and over again.

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I've noticed a trend with the residents of Amarillo, and that is almost a fear of something new and different. We always hear about how we'd like an H-E-B or Costco in the city. Those are two things that we would NOT have a problem with going up.

However, there's a lot of sectors where people are very passionate about. Let's take convenience stores for example. I heard before I moved here that we used to have 7-11's in the city, but they got run out because of an allegiance to Toot'n Totum and Pak-A-Sak. Residents almost refused to go in a 7-11 because they had a sense they were essentially cheating on the other two.

Well, we've got a Buc-ee's coming (which we're all excited about) and a couple of QuikTrip's that are popping up. Are we going to try and run them off since they aren't the aforementioned convenience stores?

How about restaurants? We get new restaurants that don't exist in the city, then people absolutely drag those new restaurants the second they open their doors. Twin Peaks is a good example of that. I've been in there a few times and never had a problem with it. It feels like nearly the rest of the city does though. Is it because of the type of restaurant it is?

Don't even bring up In-N-Out around these parts. You'll get crushed for even mentioning we could use one of those in the city.

If we want to grow as a city, we have to be willing to allow new and different things into the city. The moment we stop having SUCH a strong allegiance to one place or another, we can continue to grow and thrive. It's possible for all our favorite businesses to succeed and thrive while new ones do as well.

We all want to feel like we live in a big city, and the key to that is diversity in our options. So let's open our minds to having more to choose from across the board.