25 November 2020
It NEVA fails!
There is always/always a need for a last minute item before a big holiday! I'm sure most people will attest to this.
Safeway was where I went to grab my last minute item. Safeway is always/always full, even on "regular", non-holiday days and today was no different.
The parking lot is always a dead giveaway with a lot of cars. From the moment I walked up, I noticed all the cars in the parking lot.
At the entryway, there is an employee sanitizing carts and another ensuring only sanitized carts are put back in the assembly line. I'm not sure that Safeway limits the number of customers inside at a given time. I did not notice any employees keeping track of how may people enter or exit. They do require face masks to be worn but, I don't know how that is enforced because again, no one is observing who enters. They do have hand sanitizer at the entrance though.
Inside, there were customers in every aisle looking for their last minute items, some definitely not practicing physical socal distancing. It was not excessively packed but, it was more people at one time than on a "regular". Some aisles were impassable due to the amount of people in that aisle. I think people were more focused on getting what they came for and getting out.
In Safeway, there are directional arrows on the ground indicating one-way traffic (part of the covid precautions). However, if someone is not paying attention, they could easily miss the arrows. Also, in this instance, there were so many people in the aisles, that the arrows were covered. I simply went to another aisle to get to where I was going.
Surprisingly, majority of the shelves were still stocked with items (I really only noticed for the aisles I went to) and the floors are shiny clean. That is one thing Safeway does really well - cleanliness!
Of course, we all know that Safeway is a secondary, sometimes last resort option because of their pricyness (at least for me it is). I'm not balling by any means!
In any case, I was able to use the only available self-checkout register. All other self-checkout were being used. It was fairly quick though. The regular cashiers had a longer wait as their lines had a few people each waiting to check out.
If you do visit Safeway, do so before a holiday or risk waiting in long lines. read more