Vent: Early Morning Grocery Shopping.

[Mike 03]

I am an early riser and I like to get my shopping done early in the morning: say, between seven thirty and eight thirty.

What is the point, for the grocery store, of only having opened the "9 or less items" service aisle at that point?

Wouldn't the more rational decision be, if you could only open one aisle, and only had one grocery person on duty, to just open one of the regular aisles?

What happens if you are buying $100 of groceries, and a number of people behind you are just buying three, five, six, ten items? There is a tendency to let them go first, but this can go on forever, because there are always people in line who have fewer items to purchase than you do.

My suggestion to major grocers is, for the sake of your early-morning customers who do big shopping at odd hours, please just open one of the regular aisles, not the "Nine Items or Less," so we who have a conscience don't feel compelled to sit there like assholes and let everyone who has just a few items to buy go before us.

The whole point of shopping early is to get it over with!

This has been going on for years at the store where I purchase groceries, and it never changes.

Ventilation over.

[rurallib]

1. I don't think that is a problem at Walmart

kidding

[BulletproofLandshark]

2. Any time they only have the express open, I don't care how many items I have.

The way I see it, it isn't my responsibility to let shoppers with fewer items move past me. It's the store manager's responsibility to have more cashiers in the store.

[rucky]

9. They don't care, either.

I worked graveyard at a grocery. Nobody's sweating it - they probably just want to keep the lone checker close to the front door.

[struggle4progress]

3. Only one checkout aisle open? Then "9 or less" doesn't apply.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

5. Bingo .......

Sometimes a shopper can take those signs WAY too seriously and let common sense drift right on by ..............

[struggle4progress]

8. It's like the "Bridge Out" signs on the highway. If it's the only bridge, just ignore the sign!

:)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. If they've got those damned auto-checkout aisles,

which I despise, they should let one of those be open for express check-out.

I have the same problem as you; but I do my shopping late at night. Some stores only have express check open, so I have to bag my own stuff as well as be my own cashier.

[madinmaryland]

6. If I did my shopping late at night, I would probably be dead now from

excessive amounts of summer sausage and cheetos!

:rofl:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. Dangers of late night shopping...once at Shoprite, I got at 3am...

1 cactus, 1 bagel, 1 quart of chocolate soy milk and sushi.

[madinmaryland]

12. I forgot sushi. I'd go broke from buying that!

Unfortunately the grocery store stuff is not that fresh. But it will do if you are really jonesing for it!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

13. Yeah, I don't do raw, if it's from the supermarket

At the Harris Teeter in Charlottesville, they had an awesome Blue Crab roll. Blue crab & avocado, then they rolled the outside in old bay.

Of course, since God fucking hates me, I developed a shell fish allergy, so I guess it's for the best that there's no Harris Teeter's in Jersey.

[madinmaryland]

14. Damn! I guess I know where I'm going tomorrow!

:grr:

Yeah, they just opened one last fall here, five miles from where we live.

Fricking expensive, though. We shop at Food Lion.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

15. Up here we have...

Shoprite: Usually nice and reasonably priced.

Acme: Kind of crappy.

A&P: Nice, but expensive

Stop & Shop: Expensive and LostinVA got assaulted by a cashier (it was my fault)

Pathmark: Crappy.

Kings: Nice, expensive, but has really good quality fish, so that's all we usually get there.

We usually just do most of the shopping at Trader Joes and round it out with Shoprite/costco.

[TommyO]

16. My take on it

Shoprite: Eh, it's the closest store to my house

Acme: None around here, but my father used to manage one many, many, many years ago.

A&P: There's an A&P Fresh just a few miles away from my office in Middletown, definitely expensive

Stop & Shop: Sale items only if they're killer deals

Pathmark: Grew up with it, agreed, crappy!

Kings: I used to work near one and it was the go-to spot for lunch. Good meats and fish, pricey

I'll add a few more:

Wegmans: Not as expensive as you would think for the staples, they really shine when it comes to prepared foods, fresh meats, fish and poultry. The only problem with them is that the closest one is 25 miles away from me (I used to live five miles from one in PA). Many of them have very good sushi, of the ones I've tried, Bridgewater and Ocean are the best for it.

Whole Foods: $$$$$$, but they have some things that you can't find anywhere else.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

17. Yeah, no Wegman's around here

WholeFoods doesn't have to be expensive. However, we don't go there often, so when we do, we automatically buy the expensive stuff. I used to live across the street from one. It was great. I used to get dinner there all the time, and they sold beer/wine until 9 on Sundays, when all the liquor stores closed at 5.

[begin_within]

7. I don't think the rule applies if that is the only line that is open.

In fact, I have seen checkers wave me over to the express lane even though I had more than the limit, because they had nobody in their line. I think they can waive the rule if their lane is empty and they are just standing waiting for a customer and there are customers waiting in other lines. But if the express lane is the only lane that is open in the store, I don't see how they can possibly enforce the item limit. It should be first come, first served if that is the only lane open. What could they possibly say to you? "Sorry, sir, you've got 10 items and this is a 9-item-or-less lane. You'll just have to wait around until we feel like opening up a regular checkstand." Not likely.

[jobycom]

11. I hate when the only checker open is on the opposite end from the door.

There's a giant supercenter near me with about 30 check stands, and exits on either side of the store. So when they go to their late-night format, the close the door on the north end, and open one of the checkstands only on that end, so you have to come in the south door, walk over fifty yards to the open checker, pay, then walk over fifty yards back to the south door to leave.