A totally serious question
food, Stuff I hate September 18th, 2007
Does anyone know whether or not there are grocery stores in the Lehigh Valley where you can place an order of deli meats and cheeses in advance, and have them ready for you when you get to the store?
It would seem to me that in our technologically advanced society, where one can order up just about anything via phone or internet, we can muster up a system that keeps me from waiting in line behind twelve other people who need four kinds of cheese and two kinds of meats, all sliced to different thicknesses.
To make matters worse, sometimes my local store has a ticket dispenser available, and sometimes not. Do they not feel like taking people in order some days? I want a ticket!!
It would make sense to me that they can take advance orders. They do it in the bakery section for cakes. Why not cheese? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to make a crank call for 3/4 lb. Heidi Ann Swiss and a half pound Schaeffer’s baloney. They can DO this! No one would abuse the system, I’m sure.
And I’m not even asking that there be a special pickup place for it. I’d get in line like everyone else. It’s just I wouldn’t have to announce my order, one cold cut at a time, and then wait forever while they go to the case, find my item, unwrap it, go to the appropriate slicer, ask me again how much I wanted, walk to the scale, weigh it, not get it right, walk back to the slicer, get a couple more slices, walk back to the scale, get it close enough, and then ask "Will there be anything else?"
I could just walk up and say "I’m here for my cheese." Pick up my order and go. What’s so hard about that?
Me thinks I’m getting cranky again. Is it Friday yet?
Stumble it!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Any good butchers around? If you can find a good local butcher around they will usually take this kind of order by phone or fax. Most just don’t have constant email access though. Restaurants, butchers, bakeries, and such are still mainly stuck in the fax generation.
Unfortunately though now you have me craving a good deli sandwich. Be ashamed of yourself!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:45 am
No idea, really. I’m in the burbs, so finding a butcher won’t be easy around here. I would love to call ahead for everything in my life, actually. I’m not always good waiting in line, as you might guess. I do sometimes let other people ahead of me, but I regretted it last week when I let some guy ahead at the register with just two things. Then he proceeded to feed the cash thingy with no less than 25 pennies. I’m not kidding. I counted as he kept putting them in the slot. Good God, man! Pennies?
yeah, I’m hungry now, too. Sorry ’bout that.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:45 am
I am a woman without a grocery store. They displaced my Giant about 8 years ago and I’ve been a nomad ever since.
I haven’t seen the call ahead feature in any of my “on-the-way-home-stores.”
I did see, I believe, at the Giant on MacArthur Rd, many years ago, a touch screen (a la WaWa) at the deli counter, where a shopper could enter a sliced deli meat order, then after much elapsed time, presumably spent shopping, could return to the deli for pick up.
I was skeptical, so I never did use the “convenience.” Not quite call ahead…
And, by the way, it is VERY tough to get any real baloney when on the fringes of the Valley.
September 19th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Amy, Sorry you are a nomad. I’m lucky that I have a Weis market two blocks away, and a Wegmans a half mile away. I’ll count my blessings.
I’d accept a kiosk arrangement where I could enter my order, go shopping, then pick up later. But I’d rather do it online and have it waiting.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 am
They should do that! Or at other reasturants! You can call ahead and say if you have 50 million people coming, but do they care about what you’re going to order over th phone? Nope.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Thanks for all the suggestions. One reader emailed me that she thinks Wegmans might offer advance order services. But I’m not a fan of Wegmans for a couple reasons: price to quality ratio is out of whack, and it’s a nightmare just getting into the parking lot. Two traffic lights and four turns into the lot. I prefer a straight shot, like at Weis near me.
@ Regan — I’d love it if you could call ahead at a restaurant and have the food ready! Just get seated and a waiter comes over and shoves food in front of me. Ahhh, to dream…
October 5th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I’m afraid I don’t have any helpful advice. I just wanted to chime in that I, too, HATE it when there’s no ticket at a busy deli counter. Whole Foods does this, and it’s utter chaos!
October 5th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
J.D. — And wouldn’t it be a lot easier for the deli staff to deal more efficiently with customers? You’d think they would appreciate having a dispenser themselves. So they wouldn’t have to guess who’s next. Boggles my mind why they don’t do it all the time.