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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

Not a huge fan of Kroger at the moment.

We had FIVE stores when the local chain owned them. Kroger bought them out, and slowly closed them. Each neighborhood had its own Kroger.

They built a shiny new big store where an old A&P was. And then, closed the two reimagining "old" Krogers.

It was great at first, huge bakery, a cheese section, olive bar, all new coolers etc. But the store quickly went to crap. It's also packed because half the city is there in any given day.

They bragged about spending millions refreshing the store, but they can't even have more than 2-3 checkout lanes open.

This has all gotten worse during the pandemic. It's almost as bad as Walmart now.

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I have both a Kroger and a Publix within a three minute drive of my house and within a couple blocks of one another. I willingly pay 25-50% more to shop at Publix because Kroger is such a nightmare. The store is filthy, the meat section always smells bad, the produce goes bad within 24 hours if it's not already spoiled on the shelf, and they never open more than two checkout lines despite the fact that it's the busiest store in the area. You often end up waiting 15 minutes just to use the grimy self-checkout kiosks. This is also one of the "nice" Krogers with the fancy cheese section etc. Meanwhile Publix is always immaculate, the employees are friendly and helpful, they almost always have all their checkout lanes staffed, and the quality of the meat and produce is worlds better. I think Publix has been deliberately moving in close to Kroger locations in the south because they know they can jack up their prices and still find people practically begging to shop there because the experience at Kroger is so unpleasant.

> they can't even have more than 2-3 checkout lanes open

Long lines at limited checkout lines is awful. Supermarkets do it because they don't want to hire more staff. Consumers notice it and will shop elsewhere... unless they live in a place where there are no nearby competing supermarkets.

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