I went with my mom to shop Harris Teeter for senior hours on Monday (6-7 AM here). I enjoyed going with her.
The store was mostly empty and very quiet. There were carts labeled as already sanitized. Another section had returned carts not cleaned yet. A note/sign was typed to explain and it said to not return unsanitized carts to the sanitized section.
I worried someone may have done just that, as it's not that hard to maybe miss the sign. There were sanitizing wipes next to the already sanitized carts, so I used them with my mom to sanitize one anyways. Wiped it very thoroughly on all surfaces.
Shopped in peace. Fellow shoppers 90% of the time had face masks. My mom and I wore them, as she had an old one and made one from scratch as well. Most shoppers were careful not to get too close. Occasionally a shopper would come near us. I tried most of the time - when I saw them coming from afar and it looked like they were possibly going to get real close - to do a non-verbal signal of our desire to keep some space. I nodded in their direction and lifted my arm up in a "shielding" type of posture to let them know that I was going to and wanted to keep a certain space. I usually moved a bit over myself to indicate this. I think people who saw this understood.
Funny enough, the employees were the ones not social distancing that well. Some talked to each other within a foot apart (practically talking in each other's faces). Two older gentleman were talking in each other's faces and it was a situation where one guy's spit may have been flying into the broccoli next to them. Good thing we'd already bought our broccoli! A few walked by us within inches. I wasn't too happy about that. One was a manager, I think, who even talked to my mom very close by (within inches). I think he was just welcoming and greeting us (didn't catch exactly what he said, but that's what it sounded like) and was being friendly. However, I'd have preferred six feet of social distancing instead.
Overall, though, the place was still much more empty than during normal shopping hours. And that was very good for us.
We were able to get mostly what we wanted. However, the cleaning supplies were totally wiped out. Couldn't get bleach at all. At customer service, they did have cleaning wipes you can buy, but limit one per customer.**** That was the only cleaning supply we could find.
Check-out was open for self-checkout or serviced. We went with self-checkout. When getting a discount on some items, though, we had to have an employee touch our items (taking the coupon or something from them to enter in). That wasn't ideal. Nonetheless, it happened and that was the end of our trip.
Packed up the car and went home.
eta: ****I only knew of this, b/c when I called our Harris Teeter, the customer service person told me about them when I asked about the availability of cleaning supplies. I recommend calling stores to see what they have and if they have these possibly unknown to the public (at least, upfront or common knowledge-wise) things that you may not know about.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2020 11:38AM by shoptastic.