What Grocery Stores Lost When They Ditched the 1970s Layout contains a lot of interesting factibbles. It also contains a lot of opinions.
This quote needed some trimming. It’s section 6.
Ask anyone who grew up shopping with their parents in the 1970s about the deli counter and you’ll usually get a smile before the answer. These weren’t just service stations — they were the social center of the store. Staff remembered regulars’ usual orders. Kids got a slice of something while the adults waited. People lingered, chatted with the person next to them in line, and treated the stop as part of the rhythm of the week rather than an obstacle between them and the checkout.
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Corporate efficiency mandates in the 1990s standardized and shrank these counters across most major chains. Pre-packaged deli products took over more of the case. Staff headcount dropped. The counters that remained became transactional — grab your number, wait, order, leave.
I’m sorry, but if you don’t chat with other people in line with their number, that’s on you. It has NOTHING to do with the deli.
In Denver, I never chatted with anyone in the grocery store. In Rapid City, it’s common. It’s not the chain store or square footage or SKU count that’s the issue. It’s the people.
This one is also trimmed (section 7):
When grocery stores tripled in size, they created a problem that doesn’t get talked about much: all that new shelf space had to be stocked with something. The demand for products to fill modern supermarkets accelerated the development and marketing of heavily processed, shelf-stable foods throughout the 1980s. Food manufacturers responded to the opportunity with a wave of new products engineered for long shelf life, consistent appearance, and low production cost.
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The result was a feedback loop that reshaped what Americans considered normal grocery shopping. Fresh, perishable, locally produced food took up less and less of the store’s footprint as the processed aisles expanded.
No one is forcing you to buy that crap. I concede that it exists. So what? Walk past it.
Section 8 laments self checkout – for all the wrong reasons. Again with the “I like to chat with some random person in a store”. The reason that self checkout sucks is because the average person cannot do it well. I’d wager that the cashier at my childhood grocery store could 10-key faster than the average shopper can scan at a self-checkout today.
That’s why I miss cashiers: They were good at what they did and kept the lines moving. I don’t miss talking to them. If you _really_ want to talk to a cashier, buy alcohol.
There’s also a lament about the loss of butchers (section 3). Where does this person live?!? If you want a butcher, go to the butcher, not the grocery store. I love Dakota Butchers. I buy their not-quarter-cow a couple times a year. (It’s not an actual quarter because they leave out all the yucky stuff.) I don’t buy bacon anywhere else.
Marked Up 