Speaking of grocery stores, one of the more inexplicable things Safeway did during COVID was closing down one of the entrances at their stores with two entrances. I suspect the thought was to have someone at the open entrance making sure people were following the rules, but I only saw that twice on my weekly visits over the past year-plus (once in Ballard and once in Port Angeles, so never in my regular Pinehurst store). Instead, it just forced people to be in closer proximity! Making the entrances one way in and one way out would have made sense, but what they did was just frustrating.
I'm not really sure what Randall's did or is doing with their entrances here. The Randall's I usually shop at has two entrances, but they are very close together and, as far as I know, they both remained open. However, some supermarkets around here have closed their second set of doors. I know a Fiesta I went to did that and Kroger often has their second set of doors closed (though this was the case before the pandemic...which is quite frustrating). In fact, the 2nd vestibule for one of the bigger Krogers around here was turned into storage for bags of soil here recently!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the main entrances for most of our bigger Krogers have two sets of doors once you're in the vestibule. One goes to the deli/produce area and the other is really the exit from the checkouts. For whatever reason, they lock the deli/produce doors in the evenings, like around 6pm, and then you have to enter the store by walking through the self-checkout area. Again, this was the case even before the lockdown and I don't know why Krogers do these things.
One thing I will say is that since the start of the pandemic, the user reviews for the Houston Randall's seem to have improved over their normal status. A lot of people were happy that they had things in stock that other stores didn't during the start of the pandemic and they seem to be taking cart sanitation and such more seriously than other retailers. Of course, you'd expect that given Randall's higher-tier status here. I'm not sure what the situation is like at the Safeways in your area.
I asked a couple of retail enthusiasts you know to forward an e-mail to you since I didn't know your address. I'm not sure if you got it (or maybe you got it twice if they both sent it to you, lol!), but if you didn't get it, let me know and I'll share with you what it is I was wanting to share with you.
Hmm, that is interesting -- I wonder why Kroger would close doors long-term like that! I always think it helps with flow into and out of the store to have two doors at Safeways, and our Safeways tend to be much smaller than your Krogers. I do know that most (if not all) Safeways with multiple entrances close one later at night, as do Fred Meyers even though they're much larger stores.
DeleteHmm -- I honestly never look at Safeway reviews, but my perception of them during COVID hasn't been great. In particular, they were bad at handling stock shortages -- back during the early days when that was particularly bad, I was frequently unable to find items I needed at Safeway, which were still in stock at Target, Walmart, or even QFC.
Yep -- Retail Retell sent me that email. He said he also sent you my email address, so hopefully you got that!
I really don't know why Kroger closes their doors the way they do. With the 1990s-early 2000s Kroger Signature style stores at least, they actually have three sets of doors. The two on the edge of the store with vestibules are the obvious ones, but there is usually also a set of doors in the glassed in middle section in front of the checkouts. These are usually more of an exit than an entrance, but I suppose it could be either. Whether those are open or not these days, well, it's been a bit hit or miss in my observation.
DeleteAs for the 'second' entrance with the vestibule (sometimes used for soil storage now!), I think the reason why Kroger might be closing those might be related to Kroger not having as many manned checkouts as they used to. I suppose the idea was that clerks would keep an eye on those entrances, but it's not unusual now in the evenings for Kroger to have just one manned checkout open, or none even, and that's usually pretty close to the self-checkouts. Thus, since that entrance can't be monitored, maybe they want everyone to use the main entrance. Even then, like I said, the main entrance actually has two doors into the store from the vestibule and they often have one of those closed in the evenings as well.
I suppose maybe Safeway sent all their toilet paper to us instead of sending it to your stores, lol. Randall's having more stuff than other stores around here might simply be the result of them being lower volume than many of the HEBs and Krogers in the area. We're really dealing with a couple of problems here in Texas right now, the continued shortages caused by the pandemic and also some supply chain problems that were caused by the freeze in February. The freeze-related supply problems seem to be mostly resolved by now, but it seems that Kroger especially is still struggling a bit to get things back together. I don't know what's going on at HEB, it's been months since I've been to one.
I'm glad you got the e-mail and, yes, Retail Retell did send me your e-mail as well. Thanks goes to Retail Retell!
Walmart also closed one of their two entrances here. It was very annoying.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can definitely see that being annoying at a store the size of Walmart! I actually haven't been in any full-size Walmart Supercenters since COVID started (I don't have any Walmarts that are convenient for me to shop at, and the ones that are kind of close are all smaller-format stores -- Neighborhood Markets, traditional Walmarts, and mini-Supercenters), so I don't know what they did around here.
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