An ode to the Market Square Nisa

It’s six aisles of pricing perfection. Your saviour when you’re out of milk and open until reasonably late. Located on Market Square, Nisa just makes everything nicer. I think it’s about time we pay homage to this convenience wonderland.

Open sesame?

As you enter Nisa through the automatic doors, you’re almost trapped. Rather confusingly, the automatic doors don’t open from the inside, rendering a smooth and unimpeded exit almost impossible. Since it was recently held that Assange has been unlawfully deprived of his liberty at the Ecuadorian embassy, I’m almost certain I have a claim.

You don’t mind though, it’s Nisa and you relish any extra time spent in this wonderful altar to consumerism.

The cheeky Nisa deal

As you’ve managed to deviate the demon doors, you deserve a reward. Situated in front of the doors is something so cheeky, it makes Nando’s look like a polite schoolboy. In fact, recent highlights have come to include Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers, Pringles and even Maryland’s Soft Baked Cookies. You can always tell what products are on offer by the prevalence of packaging from some treat dotted around the library.

THE PRICE IS (not) RIGHT

“So should I buy 500ml of coke for £1.40, or I should I choose 2l of coke for £1.”

What’s worse is often the products are placed next to each other. Nisa’s basic grasp of quantity to price ratio is bewildering.

Its actually pronounced ‘Nice-sa’

What’s that in the background? Is it Greg James on Radio 1? Nope, it’s better, it’s Nisa Radio. Yes this tantalising travesty of a convenience store even has it’s own radio station.

*Spoiler alert* During this radio show, if you’re attentive enough you’ll notice the MASSIVE bombshell. Nisa is not actually pronounced “Knee-sa”, it’s “Nice-sa”. Who’d have thought?

The mysteries beyond the till

Why is the queue in Nisa so long? It’s definitely one of life’s mysteries. But, never fear, Nisa’s always overstaffed and smiley team are here. The staff are on hand to serve you as quick as possible, in a much more enthusiastic manner than YUSU shop staff.

Most importantly, they are able to serve you paracetamol, tea and coffee which, obviously to avert some caffeine catastrophe, are placed behind the till. I don’t mind though, as Nisa is somehow exempt from the plastic carrier bag charges.

So what am I saying here? As is apparent, Nisa’s disastrous doors and shoddy pricing is far from perfect. However, this is just reflective of the University of York campus. From our opaque automatic doors and unfathomably ugly 1960 buildings, it too is flawed.

In spite of this, much like Hes West campus, I wouldn’t change NISA for the world. Not for one thousand drunken Yummy Chicken takeaways, not for all the geese to migrate to YSJ and not for one more night at Willow.