Groceteria.com

One hell of a random video but it takes place in an unidentified Alpha Beta Market sometime in 1983...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NphonmPLAUk

Even with the vintage look at Alpha Beta, the video was entertaining... cool find!

Hughes56781 wrote: ↑18 Apr 2025 22:47 You don't see that style of shopping carts anymore!

Nob Hill Foods has been using these forever. I was shocked that they are still using carts as old as these.

Corti Brothers in Sacramento still uses fold down carts.

They are either fairly new or well reconditioned, repainted, etc.

that would be cool to see an article about different shopping cart types over the years...

What was fun with the old fold down carts was the plastic bumpers.

I remember long ago- 80's-

Albertsons carts- blue bumpers (obviously)
Raleys carts- yellow bumpers

Safeway carts- most Safeways did not have those carts by the 80's but instead had metal carts with a metal S made out of metal into the side of the carts. However in rural Oregon in 2009, I encountered a Safeway using fold down carts; they had green bumpers as I recall, and said SS. Also a second rural Oregon Safeway in 2009 who had the fold down carts and had repainted them and put tan bumpers on them for Lifestyle.

And they even had the flip-down front panels I remembered... As I recall, instead of putting your groceries on a turntable or conveyor belt, you just rolled the cart up to the checker, who would flip down the front panel, check the items, and put them in the bagging area...

Hughes56781 wrote: ↑07 May 2025 05:20 And they even had the flip-down front panels I remembered... As I recall, instead of putting your groceries on a turntable or conveyor belt, you just rolled the cart up to the checker, who would flip down the front panel, check the items, and put them in the bagging area...

Yes, Raleys still use carts like this but they do not flip up/down. They are just "shallow" standard carts. King Soopers in Colorado and QFC in Washington also use this model of carts in some stores as they have cashier unload checkstands. They have a little flap at the front the cashier opens/closes as they are scanning items.

My local Safeway stores used these until they left the Dallas division in 1987. Most had red bumpers and the S logo welded into the cart. Safeway referred to them as Bascarts.

They were known as a bascart and the primary version was called "Model 888", a double deck shopping cart. It allowed the cashier or bagboy to pull down the front gate and unload the items onto the checkstand conveyor belt. Those carts were quite heavy and when I was a kid back in the early 1990s, I was always afraid of getting my fingers caught on the front gate! If the cart fell on you, it was an instant trip to the hospital by ambulance! Kids often enjoyed riding in the lower deck, which most shoppers use for non-food items such as bathroom tissue and household chemicals (bleach bottles or laundry detergent bags).

Who was the original designer/manufacturer? I assume it was either Unarco, Telescope, or Technibilt (now known as Wanzl).

In Southern California, Alpha Beta and Stater Bros had them (1970s-1990s) and the only grocer that I know that still have them in crisp condition is Vicente Foods in West Los Angeles.

Now we have digital carts that have a tablet mounted on it that can compute a running total of your purchase...Amazon's "Dash" or Bristol Farms "Cartr".

luckysaver