Old Safeway Cart Spotted

[Daniel]

I saw this cart in a parking lot over the weekend. The first thing I noticed (apart from the "S" logo) was how small it was. It was about the size of a Thrifty Drug cart. Anybody have any ideas when this cart might have been used? Every Safeway I was ever in back in the day used those tall carts with the shallow baskets, not these type with the deep basket. If I owned a truck this cart would probably be in my house right now, lol!

[runchadrun]

That reminds me of a book I saw the other day: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America : A Guide to Field Identification with this description at Amazon:

In The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America author Julian Montague has created an elaborate classification system of abandoned shopping carts, accompanied by photographic documentation of actual stray cart sightings. These sightings include bucolically littered locations such as the Niagara River Gorge (where many a cart has been pushed to its untimely death) and mundane settings that look suspiciously like a suburb near you.

Working in the naturalist's tradition, the photographs depict the diversity of the phenomenon and carry a surprising emotional charge; readers inevitably begin to see these carts as human, at times poignant in their abandoned, decrepit state, hilariously incapacitated, or ingeniously co-opted. The result is at once rigorous and absurd, enabling the layperson to identify and classify their own cart spottings based on the situation in which they were found.

You can get the book at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081095 ... e&n=283155

[TheQuestioner]

I saw this cart in a parking lot over the weekend. The first thing I noticed (apart from the "S" logo) was how small it was. It was about the size of a Thrifty Drug cart. Anybody have any ideas when this cart might have been used? Every Safeway I was ever in back in the day used those tall carts with the shallow baskets, not these type with the deep basket.

Did that cart have a painted metal "S" circle on the front nose? I recall that along with the "S" shaped sides as being part of the cart design. I am not sure of the Safeways you visited back in the day were out west or not, but in the DC area stores these were the ones in use. I had never seen the high, shallow ones until I came out to CA, and even then they were rare.

As I recall, almost ALL shopping carts since the 60's until early 80's conformed to the general shape and size of the one pictured. They looked like todays carts, but were always all-metal, and were not as wide as today's typical grocery cart. By the mid 80's everyone seemed to move over to the wider carts and these older thin ones were seen only in places like dollar stores or Goodwill. Using the modern carts in older supermarkets can be problematic, the thinner aisles and checkstands make everything feel more cramped than it probably did back then when everyone's cart was smaller.

Anyone know what chain, if any particular one, started the trend toward today's shopping cart dimensions? I'm sure the reason was partly customers wanting more room in their cart, and partly grocers wanting more room in each cart to encourage more purchasing. The rise of "Economy Size" items probably helped too.

[Super S]

The carts I did not like were the small folding kind that were made to fit partly into a checkstand and had a gate at the front that could be opened to move items across the scanner. Many Albertsons stores used them.

In another thread, the now-demolished Vista and Overland Albertsons in Boise is discussed which was a Safeway at one point. There were some carts which had new Albertsons handles on them, but the frame on the carts still had Safeway stamped in the metal. I also remember at one point (after it was Albertsons) they got some new carts which had red handles instead of blue, but the handles still said Albertsons. They also still had blue handled carts. This is the ONLY Albertsons that I ever saw using red handle carts.

[Daniel]

This cart did not have a painted metal "S" on the front, but it is entirely possible it was broken off at some point in it's life.

Yes, the Safeways I remember were all in California. I was in one in Oklahoma when I was quite small but I cannot remember what type of cart they used at the time. Every Safeway that was here in Fresno used the tall, shallow basket style carts. I always assumed these were in use because of the turntable style checkstands Safeway used.

While we're talking of carts, I remember a Vons store that was originally a Sav-On that had carts with an "S-O" logo built into the wire of the cart. They used them until the mid 90's, but it wasn't until the carts were gone that I finally found out the "S-O" stood for Sav-On.

[Barcelos]

[quote=Super S]The carts I did not like were the small folding kind that were made to fit partly into a checkstand and had a gate at the front that could be opened to move items across the scanner.[/quote]

My grocer switched from the small folding ones a couple years ago and I was very disappointed. With the old ones you just pull your cart up to the checkstand and the cashier did all the work for you. With the new style I have to pick all the items out of the cart myself. I'm not sure how this benefits the customer. Should be very little difference in time spent in line.

[Dave]

The carts I did not like were the small folding kind that were made to fit partly into a checkstand and had a gate at the front that could be opened to move items across the scanner.

My grocer switched from the small folding ones a couple years ago and I was very disappointed. With the old ones you just pull your cart up to the checkstand and the cashier did all the work for you. With the new style I have to pick all the items out of the cart myself. I'm not sure how this benefits the customer. Should be very little difference in time spent in line.

That style of cart and the checkout stands that go with them are common in Food Lions, and I've also seen them in the Sycamore Square Ukrop's, which is the only Ukrop's I know of with that arrangement.

I don't like the system at all, not because of the carts necessarily, but because of the checkout stands. If you are like me and are just buying a few items and carrying them by hand, there's nowhere to put your items down when you get to checkout if you don't have a cart. It makes the checkout process awkward unless you have a cart.

I'd also think that adding one more moving part to get out of whack (the gate) isn't a good idea, as we've all had experirence with shopping carts with out of whack moving parts.

My guess as to why Sycamore Square Ukrop's has this arrangement is that the checkout stands take up less floor space and that store is one of their smaller ones.

[storewanderer]

Ideally with the older cashier unload checkstands with what I like to refer to as the "bed" that items go onto after they are bagged due to the huge amount of space present down there, there is a place to put a few items.

I've seen two configurations. On some of the checkstands there seems to be a place built in to the edge of the checkstand that can fit a hand basket. This can be seen in any Raleys operation.

On others, the checkstand has a strange little shelf like thing that pulls out from under where the scanners is and you can put your basket on that. It has to go back into its under-area when a shopping cart comes up. I've seen these fall off on more than one occassion.

The convayer belt set-up is the best. While cashier unload is nice for the customer, it is not nice for the wrist or back of your store cashier. Cashier unload is also inefficient if the wrong type of cart (the deep style) is used and even more detrimental to the cashier's back and wrist in that case.

[danielh_512]

It seems that the varying difference of how groceries are loaded is almost a North-South thing. Up north, all the chains feature conveyor belts to the cashier, where the customers unload whatever they have.

Food Lion for years has enjoyed a very different system, and I've seen the same system used at Harris Teeter. You put the cart up to the cashier, and the cashier unloads it. It usually entails a very different kind of cart, a cart that folds down or a very high typical cart (what Food Lion has now). The only Northern chain that features some of these carts, and some of this system is Giant Eagle, and only in older stores that haven't been remodeled (many of the independent stores on the South side of Pittsburgh are like this).

The latest phenomenon is a 2-tiered cart with fairly small baskets for each. This cart is all the rage at Giant now, and has been seen in new Food Lion remodels (I assume it has some kind of upscale "panache" or something, which explains why Food Lion is including them). The first place I've ever seen this kind of cart was Ukrop's, and it was 2 shopping baskets basically attached to the cart.

[storeliker]

I would have snatched up that cart in a New York Second. It looks like it wasnt at a Safeway and being used by a homeless person maybe? Was this the only one you saw? I think it would make a great planter to incorperate into the yard I know that's a little weird though.

[Dave]

...The latest phenomenon is a 2-tiered cart with fairly small baskets for each. This cart is all the rage at Giant now, and has been seen in new Food Lion remodels (I assume it has some kind of upscale "panache" or something, which explains why Food Lion is including them). The first place I've ever seen this kind of cart was Ukrop's, and it was 2 shopping baskets basically attached to the cart.

At the Ukrop's I usually go to, and quite a few others, you have five different shopping cart/basket choices, in addition to the "two child barges" and the motorized "Mart Carts". There are two different hand baskets, one with metal handles, one with plastic handles. There are older chrome steel shopping carts with almost a square deep basket, and two "newer" cart styles, the one which is essentially two handbaskets on two tiers, and also another style of two tier basket made of what appears to be grey plastic or epoxy coated steel which is larger in area but shallower than a "regular" cart.

The "two hand basket" carts are great; for want of a better term, I refer to them as "speed buggies". They hold a lot of stuff and turn on a dime. There are a relative few in the store and usually most, if not all, are in use at any given time. Older folks and men like them a lot.

For years, Ukrop's has given shoppers a three cent credit for each paper or plastic bag they brought in to reuse, and they sell canvas bags for the same purpose (of course, I never remember my bags and they end up being used as cheap luggage). A few years ago, they began selling plastic bins with strap handles and were giving credit for those too. The two tier steel carts were introduced at the same time and are designed for the bins (or vice versa).

I have a bunch of the bins, which I don't think are sold by Ukrop's any more. The concept was good but the execution was flawed. As it turned out, you had to unload the bins at checkout, and then postpone bagging until the bins were unloaded so they could be reused. Ideally, you'd fit the bins into the same or another one of the same carts you used to shop with to go to your car, but they don't fit as nicely into the carts Ukrop's uses to carry your groceries out for you, so you'd have the full bins stacked on top of one another - and they don't really stack, but rather nest.

It's nice to have choices in cart sizes, though. One of my pet peeves with Kroger is that their carts are too big, making it hard to manouever inside of the store, not to mention the parking lot.

[TheStranger]

Saw this photo on flickr and it made me think of this thread again: I actually don't remember seeing this particular Safeway cart design myself...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliamachin/209773429/