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It begins
By adamg on Thu, 01/04/2024 - 9:30pm
Mary Ellen headed over to the West Roxbury Star Market this evening and, as you can see, was confronted with some pretty empty bread shelves in advance of Saturday's storm, which in the annals of New England storms, doesn't seem like it'll be a blockbuster or anything, but, you know, it's been like two years now since we've last gotten major snow, so God only knows how bad it'll get.
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Comments
Methinks folks are
Methinks folks are overreacting. It's not even supposed to start until early Sunday morning.
Makes me deeply regret
Makes me deeply regret not going to the grocery store New years day like I had planned. ugh.. now I gotta go tomorrow.
PRAY FOR ME
Cat litter
I need cat litter from Costco tomorrow. I must be mad.
Pray for me.
eeek
I'm going to the basket at like 6-630a tomorrow to avoid the crowds, and it will STILL be busy at that hour.
Good luck. Go early when Costmo opens and save yourself!
News from The Front
So, I was coordinating my activities with friends and errands and couldn't go yesterday or any earlier today than 1 PM. It was primetime for the Everett Costco.
When I got there, the parking lot was full. Like, fuller than the pre-Christmas visit I had to make last month. There were cars in the Park parking spaces that I'm pretty sure weren't visiting the Park. There were no carts. People were waiting at the cart stalls for carts to come back. A woman asked for my cart the second I literally got to my trunk at the end.
It was so bad, that my buddy who came in his own car who was going shopping with me ended up just using my cart too. Navigating the store was the worst it's ever been with that much humanity in one warehouse. The left-hand aisle leading back to the registers had TWO lines back to the freezer section (one for registers, one for self-checkout) and it was easier to get boxed groceries by just sticking to the outside pet aisle and going in the rows only as far as necessary to go back out to the pet aisle again to move around. I used my hidden secret to jump the lines to get out though and only had to wait at the registers for like 15 minutes.
When my buddy and I got to the register, we explained that the cat litter (only thing left on the cart) was for the second set of groceries but we were sharing the cart. I said with a straight face "he and I were strangers that met in the parking lot but there were no carts so we agreed just to go shopping together today using the same cart"...and I shit you not, the cashier and the bagger didn't even blink and said that's such a cool story that it worked out for both of us like that. I had to explain it was a joke and we were buddies...but I couldn't help thinking how bonkers it was that the idea seemed so perfectly normal to them that they had so few carts that total strangers were okay with slowing each other down to share the only cart they could both find.
Anyways, we had to tell the woman outside that we still needed the cart at my car (because my buddy parked on the complete opposite side of the parking lot from me). But she didn't have to share with a stranger...one showed up at the cart stall near my car only seconds later.
A combination of the holiday, the storm, the weekend, and that Costco already being a zoo (and it doesn't even sell gasoline!)...it was definitely a Perfect Storm moment there today (although we didn't see George Clooney...or even Marky Mark).
This evening?
Could you hit it tonight after work? Sometimes it's a little less crowded, although my husband went to Everett yesterday evening and it was less than a weekend, but more than previous weeknights.
The theory would be
BY THE EVENING EVERYTHING WILL BE GONE!!!!! THE BREAD! THE MILK!!! THE EGGS!!!! THE SHELVES WILL BE BARE!! NO TOILET PAPER EITHER!!! EITHER BE PREPARED OR DIE!!!!
(sorry for the all caps, but it does convey the insanity of storm shopping. We'll be shopping tonight, our regular time.)
HA HA HA
Best of luck to you!
The best time to shop
Sunday morning. The snow won't be that bad and the supermarkets will be restocked and empty.
Traveling isn't bad during a snow storm in Boston. It's the few days after that suck.
Not so sure about restocked
I have noticed that when we get these huge storms travelling from west to east across a broad swath of the country, trucking gets stalled and deliveries don't arrive even if *our* weather is still reasonable.
Not a risk because of local conditions, but a risk because of nationwide conditions.
Exactly
Which makes evening shopping all the better. What people don't realize is that stores do their restocking in quiet times, and (in the case of Market Basket) late afternoon when the teens are available.
But we won't tell other people that ... shhh.
Market Basket Stocking
Yes. Market Basket has more teens working for it in the afternoons after school but stocking is around the clock when the store is open. Unlike Stop & Shop and Shaw's who have overnight crews that do most of the stocking, Market Basket does not. So its done when the store is open.
The mindset goes to Market Basket's commitment to Customer Service. By stocking shelves continuously when the store is open, not only are you selling more product, but an employee is never more than an aisle or two away if you need help.
Most Market Basket stores have continuous deliveries fwiw. As part of their business model isn't just deliveries from their own distribution centers, but direct deliveries from vendors to stores whenever possible. So coke, pepsi, fantini bakery, most of the bread and chip aisle, some dairy, and other vendors directly delivery (and often stock) their product to Market Basket stores. Other places do not do it this way, but MB says this is a money saving technique.
Like just today when I was there, over the PA someone announced "all stockers to receiving for C&S" which mean the C&S Wholesales truck(s) arrived.C&S is a large grocery distributor of private labels (like Top Crest, Best Yet, etc). It wouldnt surprise me that they make many of the MB branded products.
Anyways I babble. Much of this is discussed in the "We are Market Basket" book that came out a year or two after the Market Basket Protests in 2014. It was interesting to read how they do things and why.
That's not wrong though
...and it has nothing to do with storms. Shop the average supermarket at 8 pm and it's a crapshoot whether products will be available.
Um
If you ever are interested in what I look like, go to Roche Brothers in West Roxbury at about 8:15 on a Friday evening and you can start sleuthing.
8:15, every Friday evening- okay, sometimes Saturday at the time- and very few issues with finding items on my shopping list. I predict that we will have an average trip.
I’m back from the store
The only thing I couldn’t get were Hostess Ring Dings. The chicken that was on sale was gone, but we got other meat.
Quiet, peaceful trip.
That's a small chain
That's a small chain, not a typical supermarket, but ok. Market Basket also seems better at stocking shelves in the evenings, but in my experience most do not bother.
20 locations
Revenue around $400 million. Not exactly the mom and pop operation is was 60 years ago.
I go to Roche Brothers because of their customer service, like Market Basket. That said, I could only dream that I'd be charged Market Basket prices. Then again, Market Basket is basically a real estate company that also has supermarkets. It's a genius business model.
Market Basket
My north shore location has every lane open with a bagger last night, probably more workers than people shopping by 7 pm. Decided to do a full shop vs just dinner and some staples.
My man is headed to Costco today
We stopped paying attention to our toilet paper stock after the kids moved out and, whelp, almost out!
We have started biking on the extension of the Northern Strand down to the Casino from the Fermentation District if we know that parking lot is going to be a hellscape. On a bike, this magical pathway heads straight to Costco, and we have a bike trailer.
I went to the Target on the weekend before Christmas, and was in and out of there before the cars in the parking lot barely moved. I try to tell people about this - its gloriously easy! I've seen a lot of commuting cargobike dads and moms stopping there if I take that route home from work.
Pandemic tip
When no one had toilet paper during the pandemic, I had two reliable sources: my small local independent market, which at one point sold some of their own industrial tp stock, and Staples. Staples reliably has jumbo packages of toilet paper, paper towels, etc.
Truth
A local restaurant supply shop also had TP.
I better stock up on what really matters
Heading to the dispensary.
Thoughts and Prayers
From southern Florida, where I moved to in 2022 to avoid winter and then you practically didn't have one last year!
Enjoy the snow!
Same to You
Hurricane season is over but you still have that little fascist wannabe tyrant of a governor.
Magoo sez
Magoo is eggcited to make a snowchicken. Magoo.
brb