RETAIL/LEISURE

Another Amenity: 8.5 Smith’s Food & Drug Center in Yorba Linda offers such unusual amenities as a dry cleaner, fresh sushi, a bank branch and a Ticketmaster center.

Now comes a new twist: a full-time wine steward. The liquor department has created a separate wine room that stocks more than 100 different selections, including six-liter bottles of rare champagne.

And who lords over it all? Eddie Blout, the wine steward, naturally. It is his job to advise customers on what wine goes best with pot roast or, for that matter, sushi.

No word on whether he carries one of those funny-looking cellar keys around his neck.