down. Five weeks of long days, late nights and busy, busy weekends for everyone concerned. During that five weeks, the supermarket did not close for as much as a single hour, to limit the inconvenience to customers. The MarketPlace plan was nothing less than a wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor renovation of the supermarket. New floor, new refrigerators, new walls, new ceiling. New everything. But when the new Heron Bay MarketPlace opened last Tuesday, the hardest work lay ahead for most of the staff in the supermarket as a huge number of Bermudians came to see for themselves the changes which lay in store. "It was a busy day, one of the busiest I can remember, but it was rewarding to see so many old friends,'' said MarketPlace executive vice president Allan Doughty as he conducted a walking tour of the new store. "It seemed like the whole community turned out to wish us well,'' he said. For many of the residents of the West End of the island, the Heron Bay MarketPlace is more than just the place they go do their shopping. It's a place to meet friends and catch up on the news while replenishing the larder for the week ahead. And as of last week, the Heron Bay MarketPlace is a much more relaxed and enjoyable environment in which to go shopping. "The whole point of what we've done here is to make shopping at the MarketPlace a more comfortable experience for our customers,'' Mr. Doughty said. You can't help but notice the changes the moment you enter the store. It's much brighter. It's a little bit bigger. It's friendlier. And you're standing just a step away from the MarketPlace's brand new indoor garden, a world of produce and fresh meat gathered from all over the world. "What we've done here is to bring all the fruits and vegetables and fresh meats together under one roof,'' said Mr.

Doughty. "The idea was the result of some creative logic. The goal was to provide a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in which shopping becomes less of a chore.'' What the MarketPlace has created is a sense of the big outdoors inside the supermarket. "Our produce section has become a supermarket within a supermarket,'' Mr. Doughty explained, but with its garden atmosphere it's actually more of a supermarket outside a supermarket. It's as if the building has been turned inside out. If you stand back a little, you can quite easily imagine that you're outside the building looking in. The all-new wood flooring has come straight from Japan. The use of old-fashioned wooden baskets (they're called California slantbacks) and green umbrellas, together with matching awnings, provides the senses with a taste of days gone by -- with a range of produce and fresh meat which was impossible to obtain in those far-off days.

All-new refrigerators guard the range of fresh meats and house the convenient President's Choice collection of frozen entrees. Four of the refrigerator doors -- a first for Bermuda -- hold the President's Choice dinners, all manner of tantalising meals from far and wide, such as tandoori chicken, filet mignon, honey and lemon chicken breasts... The collection includes dozens of specialties, attractively priced and prepared by the President's Choice people, who MarketPlace shoppers know very well indeed. "People are obviously going to like the quality of these meals,'' said Mr. Doughty. "But the other great thing is the variety of the range,'' he added. "These dinners are a good way to liven up your cooking. It would take a long time to work your way through the entire range.'' Everywhere there is light. Using energy-efficient lighting from Canada, the MarketPlace has suffused the garden with warm and welcoming light, enabling you to make that all-important inspection of your purchases in the best-possible conditions. And when you've decided what you want and are ready to move on, seven staff members are now available to help weigh your produce for you. New scales, of course, integrated with the new registers at the supermarket's seven check-outs, enable the Heron Bay MarketPlace to live up to its claim to be "the store of the future.'' Only 500 square feet of new space have been added. "This wasn't about making the store bigger, but brighter and better,'' said Mr. Doughty. Most of the space that was added came from moving some refrigeration units back a little bit.

The garden market fills one-third of the 14,000 square feet at the Heron Bay MarketPlace. The other two-thirds is mostly given over to the products shoppers have come to know, although their locations have changed somewhat in the shuffle. Maps of the new store layout are available, but most people find they're better off to take a stroll through the supermarket and check out where things are for themselves. After all, the products won't be moving again for quite some time. Right behind the produce are the sauces and relishes, and behind them are the frozen meats, stored in what are known as waist-high freezers, which are the ones with the open tops. These have been installed across the store, giving the back half of the MarketPlace a wide-open feel to match that of the new garden. In the far corner is a brand-new delicatessen and pasta and cheese counter. A huge range of cheeses is available at the new MarketPlace cheese counter, with more varieties being added all the time.

Cheese from all over the world, cheese of every variety imaginable. They're taking their cheese seriously at the MarketPlace. The familiar supermarket aisles now only take up about a third of the store. They hold the million and one other products at the MarketPlace -- which is an exaggeration. In fact, they carry 14,000 different products. PHOTO HAPPY TIMES -- A more relaxed and enjoyable shopping experience MINI SUPPLEMENT SUP