Grocery Delivery

[Master Thrasher]

Before the pandemic, my mom and I would go grocery shopping about every ten days or so. Since the pandemic hit, I haven't bought anything in person at a supermarket.

A month ago, my mom ordered stuff from Pavillions (Vons/Safeway) that was to be picked up. Pick up times and locations were hard to get as demand was high. I ended up traveling to a neighboring city a week from when the order was place to get them. Several things that were ordered weren't in stock and we weren't going to get them.

A few weeks later, my mom orders from Stater Bros, which is a local So Cal chain. They use one of those third parties to deliver stuff. She was on the phone constantly as stuff wasn't in stock or needed to be substituted.

So I decided to order from Smart and Final as there is one close to my house. I order about $100 worth of goods. I didn't know they use a third party too. He only texted me three times about stuff not being in stock. I feel really good that my order is going to be mostly filled. The driver left three bags at my door and I thought this is it? He didn't get half the stuff on my list. I'm going to be charged $40 but I'm upset I should have been given the heads up on this.


Anyway, I wanted to know your experiences with buying food online through supermarkets.

 

[Baby Shoes]

My sister lives abroad and has done this for a long time, especially getting cases of water brought up several floors in a building with a non working elevator.

I never wanted someone picking my produce or anything for me, or not taking care in checking dates so I wasn’t too interested. I had a pretty major surgery early this year that limited my lifting as well as putting me in a quarantine before quarantine was cool. While there isn’t a Safeway close to me, I found some that would deliver through their service to my area. The couple times they came, it was mostly helpful. The drivers offered to carry the bags inside but I didn’t find it necessary for my situation. They had different service fees for wanting either a Safeway driver or a third party. I’ve only ever gotten people in branded Safeway trucks.

When the pandemic hit, I took up their 30 day free trial of the service that voids the delivery fees and then paid the $99 for the year, figuring it would last. I have had a couple snags of them forgetting items or double ringing. It took a while to get their customer service to correct. Sometimes their “substitutions” need to be shut off - like when ground beef was scarce and I managed to order some, the picker thought it was appropriate to substitute ground turkey, so I got a huge package of that. I eat it so it’s fine but not really an appropriate replacement - it isn’t the same thing. The other day I had to call and get a couple things redelivered because the freezer door was stuck, so the driver couldn’t give me my ice cream and frozen veggies that day.

The local Kroger chain here is Fry’s. They have a curbside pickup option so I’ve done some stuff through them lately too. They are better about giving you the chance to approve substitutions and allow you to add stuff to your order leading up to pickup, a feature Safeway shut off from their high demand.

I will say, when the pandemic hit, it was hard to get a delivery date scheduled but they have fixed their schedules and now both stores basically have next day service again, at least in my area. I had the same availability issue with Safeway weeks ago but I’d say check again if they are convenient for you. I got a next day delivery the other night when I noticed I needed something for my planned dinner the next night.

 

[King Kamala]

Hannaford's, big local grocery store in Maine's curbside pickup has more or less shit the bed since the pandemic hit. It never has any spots open.

Instacart has Shaws, which is the Washington Generals to Hannaford's Harlem Globetrotters. I just put in a big order actually and put in a huge tip for the driver since I know Instacart is super shitty to their workers. They've been good about getting stuff and refunding/replacing when it's not there. But I just know I'm gonna get at least one janky ass piece of produce.

Some smaller grocers in Portland have deliveries but they don't deliver to the sticks. I did curbside pickup at great butcher shop right up street from my parents house.

 

[Epic Springs]

I used Instacart right when the pandemic hit for the first time and got a decent selection of stuff. There was no delivery fee and only had to tip the delivery guy (which I did of course). I was scared the local grocery stores were never going to have anything I can eat so I panicked. When I first checked the app, there were no available dates within a week but when I checked a few hours later, I was able to get one in two days. The availability is so hit or miss that I'd rather just do a one big grocery trip a week in person to get everything I need.

I have a Target about a 20 minute walk from me so I just go there and stock up on things mainly because there's never any line to get in. I will occasionally also go to the local grocery stores but if you try going past 5, good luck with the selection.

 

[King Kamala]

I went to the grocery store on Mother Day's around 9 AM and it was perfect. Not busy, great selection on everything and they even had a moderate amount of toilet paper and paper towels.

I'm going to make Sunday morning grocery shopping a thing* for that reason. I assume even during a pandemic/not during a holiday, it's a slow time

*This is a crosspost with "The Thread For Posters Who Are Washed" in General Chat.

 

[Epic Springs]

I have a Target about a 20 minute walk from me so I just go there and stock up on things mainly because there's never any line to get in.

....and I just got home from shopping there and there was a big line around the parking lot to get in. Good thing though is that the wait was less than 10 minutes and the store was less crowded which made the shopping experience a lot better so there's that at least.

 

[Master Thrasher]

I went to Vons today. It was completely normal except they had one way aisles that people didn't pay attention to, a mandatory mask policy that customers didn't do, and maintaining distance while being in line,

 

[King Kamala]

Did Instacart order today and a third of the stuff I wanted was out.

I had to go for my 5th or 6th choice for chicken cause I had to have some damn chicken and ended up with 5 pound bag of drumsticks. Almost all of the chicken I've eaten in the past two months has been drumsticks. Apparently I'm 8 years old again.

Demand for chicken is so high in my area that even premium chicken tenders have been out. Drummies and Dino Nuggets for me again.

 

[King Kamala]

Did Instacart order today and a third of the stuff I wanted was out.

Today the driver delivered it to the entirely wrong address. I got off a work call and was like "Wait a second. Did our groceries get delivered?" (they were supposed to delivered at 3 PM and it was like 5 PM) and girlfriend said they had not. I reacted like Mr. Dink after Doug broke his grill. Turns out Instacart driver delivered it to the same address but in the next town over.

Someone in next town over is wondering why the hell a bunch of tofu, fish sauce, and orange juice with pulp got dropped off on their porch.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Orange juice with pulp?

Your groceries deserve to be lost at sea

 

[King Kamala]

Good lord wanted you to drink orange juice with pulp!

 

[Baby Shoes]

If I wanted chunks of orange, I’d just eat an orange, sir

 

[Epic Springs]

I second pulp in orange juice being gross.

 

[King Kamala]

Philistines!

(kind of amazed you guys are singling out the pulpy orange juice over the tofu and fish sauce)

 

[Baby Shoes]

I love tofu.

I don’t believe I’ve tried fish sauce so I can’t judge until I tried because it isn’t something asinine like that bubblegum pizza

Orange juice with pulp can die in a fire

 

[King Kamala]

Fish sauce is for stir fry.

Oh I also bought calamari rings. Maybe should've included that with weird list of foods.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Those are good too. Aren’t gonna dig yourself out of this orange juice thing and clearly you FEAR starting a poll thread to recognize the error of your ways, brother man

 

[King Kamala]

If I have to stand alone for my orange juice with pulp hill at TRTSM then SO BE IT!

 

[Epic Springs]

Kamala, what are they offering in compensation? Are they refunding your order?

 

[King Kamala]

They just exchanged the order and the replacement driver was able to find more things than the original driver so it worked out in the end.

 

[Epic Springs]

So what you're telling me is that eventually you got orange juice with pulp delivered to your home. Yuck.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

man, of course the guy who loves posting gross food would like drinking pulp

 

[King Kamala]

love that viscous feeling runnin' down my throat.

 

[Baby Shoes]

love that viscous feeling runnin' down my throat.

sounds like you trying to drink emo king mabel when you say it that way my dude

 

[King Kamala]

 

[909]

Some pulp is good but I prefer no pulp.

 

[King Kamala]

That is me after finishing a glass of OJ with pulp.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/theOtherDude/status/1269322313406853126

 

[HarleyQuinn]

One of my co-workers has been doing hers through Amazon's Pea Pod thing I think. I still opt to deal with the grocery store partly due to being able to save via my Stop & Shop Card but also the self checkout + just seeing what they have in the store.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Team Pulp over here. Might as well be imbibing "orange drink" if you don't want pulp.