One of my favorite things to do is groceries. I love going to the grocery store late at night (the local one by home closes at 10 PM), after the evening rush is cleared, and go through the aisles one after another, picking out the foods for the upcoming week. It’s a good way to get in some me-time as well (this probably sounds weird but it is a great indication of being an adult, right?).
One of the main reasons I enjoy going late at night, on a weekday, is because I can’t stand the long lineups that build up during the weekend and busy hours of the store. Call me impatient, but standing in a checkout line for over 15 minutes sometimes can get a little bit frustrating—weeknights are the way to go!
With that said, I can only imagine what the customers at one New Hampshire grocery store, Hannaford, were feeling like when the cash registers went down one day last week and weren’t expected to be back up and running for the next hour. You would think that all havoc would break loose, people would be angry, and families would go home without food. Well, that’s not what happened.
Although many businesses would have asked their customers to wait the hour, while they looked into the matter, this grocery store in question allowed their consumers to walk out of the store with all that they had in their cart—for free!
There were about 50 people waiting in line to check out when the registers went down. The manager and his employees didn’t want the customers to be waiting around the whole time so the employees simply started bagging peoples’ purchases and letting them go home. It’s needless to say that everyone was happy coming out of that store. Who doesn’t want free groceries?!
Store manager Shawn Quelch relays the incident and then says that they happily gave away $3000-$5000 worth of goods that day. But, they’re proud to have made this unique decision for the customers. He also mentions that he’s been with Hannaford for over 30 years and the registers have never gone down the way they did last week.
Steven Blanchard dropped by Hannaford that afternoon while on a break from work. He wanted to quickly grab some items and be on his way. That’s when he saw that the store was an utter mess because of the malfunctions. He contemplated leaving everything in his basket behind and heading back to work. But, he’s glad he stayed. In a news report, Steven admits that “Hannaford just took the worst shopping experience I’ve ever had and made it into one of the best.”
This is quite the remarkable gesture on their part, that’s for sure!
Click on the video below to see the full story!
