The Buyout
By Leila Samii
The receipt came to a total of 57 feet long, representing $19,000 worth of purchases. The store goes by the name of Hercules Fancy Grocery, and the project is the end result of one thought: What would happen if someone were to buy out an entire store?
The team that performed the “Buyout” consisted of Hal Kirkland, Jody Gnant, Gary Lachance, Kyle Macdonald of the Red Paperclip Project, and a man by the name of ‘Fiddy’. While on vacation in Hawaii, Kyle, his brother and Jodie formulated the thought over drinks at their seaside resort. But it wasn’t until Jodie instantly proposed Hercules’ Fancy Grocery, a convenient store in New York City’s West Village that the idea took flight.
“I thought it was a joke at first, a group of punks trying to test me. But then I realized how serious they really were about buying everything. I’ve never been so happy,” said Hercules Dimitratos, the owner of the store.
Before the team walked into the store, Dimitratos was about to lose his lease, along with his entire business.
On the day of the buyout the refrigerators in Hercules Fancy Grocery were filled to the brim with a wide selection of specialty international beers, among other more practical goods. To empty the entire store took a total of 6 hours, and the items were placed in a U-Haul truck to be transported to an undisclosed location.
“We realized that getting a parking ticket every day was cheaper than simply parking the truck in a parking lot, so we decided to keep it on the street. The parking tickets are currently on sale online, along with many of the other items that we bought at an inflated price,” said Macdonald.
Macdonald also put the original receipt on auction. The Purchaser of the receipt, which is ensconced in a “luxurious” transparent case, is promised a hand delivery from the entire team. The bid started at 1 cent, with the “buy it now” price at 1 million dollars (the price is currently up to $18,187.93). And to pay homage to the wide variety of beers Hercules’ carried the team created an installation called 99 bottles – one bottle to represent each of the actual 99 beer labels they purchased from the store.
With every new idea or project carried out, there are bound to be mixed reviews. Some saw the Buyout as a witty social project, but the team has also garnered some unwanted attention.
“We’ve had a lot of people call us bored rich hipsters looking for something to do,” said Macdonald.
Looking beyond the accusations, it was clear that the team was simply experimenting with the definition of value, and how that can change for each individual. Packets of Orbit Gum were previously sold at an average price, determined by Dimitratos, but through the project have sold online for $75.
Perhaps it was simply the intrigue of owning an object that was purchased during the Buyout that has people buying these products, or simply nostalgia for purchasing art objects that harken back to a time when art was created for a social cause. Regardless of the incentive, people are still participating in the ‘Buyout movement’.
In the words of Macdonald, “It was really just the idea of taking items and attempting to raise their value that got us most interested in the project, and it’s really all about what these objects are worth to someone else.”