…are drive-through window grocery stores.
Imagine. You’re driving home. It’s four-thirty. In your back seat, a baby sleeps in his infant seat and a four-year-old has zonked out next to him. You need to make dinner when you get home. To do that, you need to pick up a few things at the grocery store. But those kids really need that nap right now.
So you pull into your local Cub, or Kroger, or Piggly Wiggly, or Big Bear (aw, who’m I kidding; around here the first to offer it would be Byerly’s or Lunds. They don’t even bag your groceries at Cub) and maneuver your car into the drive-through lane, waiting your turn and listening to "All Things Considered" while your children sleep.
It’s rush hour, so the "10 Item Limit, Please" sign is illuminated. You brake and peer up at the "menu" of available items, a small but carefully crafted selection of emergency groceries:
- Half-gallons of milk
- Coffee
- Eggs
- Butter (sold by the stick!)
- Half-gallons of orange juice
- Bread
- Bagged shredded cheese
- Ground beef
- Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Spaghetti
- Cans of diced tomatoes
- Bagged prewashed salad greens
- One or two kinds of cereal
- A "fresh vegetable of the day." Today, it’s green beans, preweighed in half pound bags.
- Toilet paper
- Diapers (remember the target market here)
- Maybe some other very basic toiletries
Hm, at home there’s onions and tortilla chips and salsa and chili powder… You order a pound of ground beef, a bag of cheese, some bagged lettuce—oh yeah, we’re almost out of milk, that too. All set to make some taco salad. You really like sour cream on it too, but oh well, have to put some yogurt on it instead.
"Your total is $12.22," says the cashier, leaning out the window for your credit card. Not bad; a little more expensive than shopping in the store. When it clears, you pull forward, wait a couple of minutes while she retrieves your items, and then reach out the window to receive a plastic grocery bag containing a pound of ground round double-wrapped in a second bag, a one-pound bag of shredded cheese, and a ten-ounce bag of Dole Classic Iceberg salad. The milk is handed out next, a half-gallon of 2% in another plastic grocery bag.
"Thanks," you say, and drive home, where you just might be able to get the kids, or at least the baby, inside and onto the couch without waking them up.
The list above is all most people, given a little creativity and enough odds and ends in their pantry at home, would need to get through 24 hours without going to the store. The stocking space would have to be limited for customers to be served promptly; you’d want all these items to be right at hand for the one or two employees running the drive-through to be able to quickly assemble an order.
I suppose, though, a few more items could be added that would increase the traffic:
- Two or three popular brands of soda, sold by the can or in two-liters (or just position a soda machine downstream of the window)
- Two or three types of salted snacks, e.g. tortilla chips, potato chips, and pretzels. Maybe pork rinds for the low-carb folks. Salsa too.
- Frozen or take-and-bake pizzas.
- Jars of plain spaghetti sauce
- Hamburger Helper (TM)
- How could I forget!? Rotisserie Chickens.
- Cans of soup—probably chicken noodle and tomato.
- Doughnuts from the bakery.
Another idea would be to include some "value combos"—something that would enable you to put together an entire dinner for four, already assembled, perhaps with a recipe included. For example:
- A prebaked pizza shell, can of sauce, package of pepperoni, bag of pizza cheese, one green pepper and one onion.
- One and a half pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breasts, a green vegetable such as broccoli, one box of packaged rice pilaf, and a lemon.
- A box of Hamburger Helper (TM) along with the hamburger to be helped and, if necessary, supporting items such as cans of tomato paste. (Just for the record, I do not eat the stuff. I’m thinking mass appeal here).
- Some beef sliced for stir-fry, a package of frozen mixed vegetables, and a package of rice.
- A bag of corn tortillas, a couple cans of imported refried beans, a couple of cans of imported salsa, a tub of queso fresco, and a few fresh tomatoes.
- A box of spaghetti, two cans of whole tomatoes, an onion, a loaf of bread from the bakery, a chunk of Parmesan cheese (or some pre-shredded cheese), and a bagged Caesar salad. Four ounces of Italian sausage could be added for an upcharge.
I’m not saying that all of these options should be available on any given day, but one or two could be nice.
If I had my way, I’d be able to get
- Brown rice
- Old-fashioned oats
- Butter
- Canned or aseptically packaged chicken broth
- Packages of tofu
- Fresh salmon filets
- Lemons
- Chard
- Garlic
- Fresh ginger
- Red and green bell peppers
- Spinach
- Cans of whole tomatoes
- Cans of tuna
- Quarts of plain yogurt
Add the chicken breasts and I could feed my family for weeks.
bearing blog 