Put a Lion In Your Cart
A simple supermarket done well
I wrote recently about Giant, one of my local supermarket chains. They’ve closed off an entrance informally, and played with the self-checkout machines to try and tamp down shoplifting:
This set of rules has only aggravated all of the familiar problems with these finnicky machines, which are programmed to both work and suppress shoplifting, which means that they frequently do neither. Once, I placed my hat in the bagging area while I rang up, which locked the machine (unscanned item in bagging area, please wait for assistance.) Another time I bought a single tiny habanero pepper—it came to about five cents—which I dutifully scanned and placed in the bagging area. But it was so light, the scale didn’t even detect it. Item not placed in bagging area, please wait for assistance.
Maybe I should’ve just stolen the damn pepper.
It’s turned shopping there into an unpleasant chore. I used to go all the time—I can walk to it from our house, and it’s a good everyday store. I’m picky about my supermarkets; I’m the guy who’ll go to three in one day because each one has a particular thing I like: spinach and eggs at Aldi, chicken at Wegmans, garlic at H-Mart, bronze-cut spaghetti at Harris Teeter, frozen lunches at Trader Joe’s. And nothing at Giant, anymore, because it’s now an understaffed store hostile to its customers.
There are two other supermarket chains in the region I’ve mostly avoided for the last few years: Safeway and Food Lion. They always struck me as what you might call overpriced discount stores. They weren’t as nice as Giant or Harris Teeter, but not as cheap as Aldi or Lidl. They reminded me of the old-school supermarkets I can just remember as a kid in the ’90s: dingy ’70s-era stores with groaning freezers and stained drop ceilings. Pathmarks, A&Ps, ACMEs.
I think I was mostly right about Safeway. But I was wrong about Food Lion.
There’s a Food Lion very close to my house—not quite walkable, but a very short drive. And you can park right along the side of the building! It’s a small thing, but it’s less imposing than a larger store set further away from where you’re supposed to be.
The entrance vestibule has two exterior entrances but only one interior entrance; so enough room not to feel cramped, but no issue of shoplifters using the less-watched entrance, which is apparently why some of these stores have closed off one entrance. Subtle design elements.
Before I decided to boycott Giant, I had only been to this Food Lion once or twice. Before that, I’d been to Food Lions here and there, and always thought they seemed very bare and minimal. No fancy steak! No Italian charcuterie at the deli! The produce section looked small. But you know, I don’t buy fancy steak often, and we eat the same three or four vegetables most of the time. What difference does it make? And the produce area is better than it looks. And the prices are very competitive.
The other day, for example, I needed a banana and an onion. I’ve been trying to be more efficient with shopping: going to the local store and buying what I need, instead of driving further to the nicer store and buying extra stuff I don’t need. I don’t need to be tempted by the jumbo sea scallops or the dry-aged steak when I just need a banana and an onion.
My banana was about 40 cents per pound. My jumbo white onion was $1.49lb. I wandered around the store and added some frozen creamed spinach, 4 for $5. And some very nice looking asparagus for $1.99lb. I looked at the meat: $9.99lb for pretty nice looking boneless ribeye steaks (not all that marbled, but still nice; I’ll try them on a future visit.) These are, at least around here, very good prices. I came home with a weighty bag of groceries for 8 bucks. I even spotted, in the clearance area, one-pound bags of cane sugar for 25 cents!
What are the shortcomings? No butcher or fish counter; very small slicing deli. Not much international or gourmet selection.
No prepared food bar with multiple cuisines on offer; no sushi station. (But there are $6.99 rotisserie chickens!) But the prices are actually competitive. Unlike Safeway, where I’ve often seen items priced higher than Wegmans, Food Lion actually offers a basic, discount shopping experience. I’ve seen other stores in this market segment—like the Price Rite which inhabits the old Giant in Maryland that Queen Elizabeth II once visited. I think these guys do it best.
I’ve even spotted somewhat unusual items here: Dole Whip frozen dessert, for example; or these whole briskets and large chunks of pork belly advertised as being great on the smoker. Again, very fair prices.
And there’s even a serviceable beer and wine section!
Overall, despite being small in terms of square footage, Food Lion feels spacious, and very clean and bright. It’s like going grocery shopping as a kid, at a very nice version of one of those dingy ’70s stores that were still hanging around. It’s probably what they were like when they were brand new.
I was even more impressed that the store has no self-checkouts, just a small row of registers. The wait was short. The place even offers double money back for bad items. There’s a sense of customer service.
The cashier was friendly and offered paper or plastic bags. “Paper or plastic?” I’m old enough now to have forgotten things from my childhood, to feel nostalgia—to realize that real time has passed since then. That’s a question I feel like I haven’t heard in ages. Most localities where I shop now have bans or taxes on plastic bags, and the standard routine has become bringing your reusable bags and either filling them yourself or offering them to the cashier.
I don’t mind this; I even wrote a piece about how I kind of like it. But you know what, I’d kind of forgotten how nice it was to just have your groceries bagged as a matter of course and get to choose which kind of bag you wanted (am I short on plastic bags for cat litter, or paper bags for recycling? I reuse every last one.) As far as I can tell, Food Lion eats Fairfax County’s bag tax and offers both types of bags for free.
Of all the places for that old experience of the customer as king to pop up, it was this little modern old-school discount supermarket.
I remember people being friendly, finding occasional bargains, and just kind of enjoying the experience. That’s what struck me: that this ordinary store had slowly, subtly become one of those “living fossils,” a commercial enterprise doing what it had always done and carrying forward a previous incarnation of its general concept. Most companies no longer build supermarkets like this.
So I’m glad to have it around. And I had no idea I had it right in my own backyard.
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I'm sure you already know that Giant and Food Lion are owned by the same parent company: Ahold Delhaize. In fact, I've seen some of the same "limited edition" seasonal products at each store. In spite of this, it's interesting that each brand is allowed to maintain some level of their own autonomy in a world that has become much more globalized, consolidated, and, frankly, less interesting.
I find Food Lion can be better in my area than Giant. I have had spoiled chicken from a local Giant, but not from Food Lion. The prices are cheaper at Food Lion, too. Sometimes special diet items are more available at Food Lion.