My earliest memory of Food Lion was back when it was known as Food Town. Ours was on Sunset Drive in Monroe, NC. It was across the street from the Methodist Church and diagonally across from the scout hut. Food Town was almost half way between our house and Grandmother's. i remember she shopped there a lot, especially the older she got because it was close and a fairly easy parking lot to get in and out of.
i remember going there as a small child, before i started school, with Mom during the week. i would sit on the bottom of the cart after i got to be too big to ride in the child seat. It was always fun to be pushed around by Mom and see all of the items that were closer to the ground. One particular thing i remember is going there to buy supplies for our annual beach trip to Kure Beach each year. When we were small, we were not given many sodas. i don't know if this was because they weren't good for us or because we could not afford them on a regular basis. Anyway, when we went to beach, we always got sodas to take with us. Specifically, Chek Soda. They came in many different flavors. The can was always white and whatever color "matched" the flavor of the soda. Mom would be 4 or 5 flats of them. Of course, then i had to get out from below the cart so she could put them there. But, i will always associate Food Town with going to the beach.
i also remember the glories of having shopping carts with license plates on them. After your groceries were bagged by people who were actually trained on how to bag groceries, not just put 2 items in each plastic bag, you were given the option to push the cart out yourself or drive around for pickup. If you drove around, the cashier would write your cart's license plate number on the back of your receipt. You drove up to the front of the store and a clerk would put your bags in the car for you. Shoppers today don't know what they're missing!
i remember one time, after Food Town became Food Lion, it went through a period where ours was not the best or cleanest grocery store in town. Harris Teeter, Winn-Dixie and Kroger and all opened up and Food Lion got left in the dust. Even though their prices were considerably better, people did not shop there as they used to. A friend of Mom's who was a home economics teacher at a high school, i don't remember which one, was shopping for chocolate chips there for a class project. She found the chips easily enough, but the first bag she grabbed was open. There were teeth marks on it...and not human teeth either. She went through several bags and all had been chewed and gnawed open. And underneath where the bags were there were mouse droppings. Needless to say, she did not buy the chips and was not happy either. So, she took each bag of chocolate chips that was damaged by mice, opened them up and let the chips spread all over the aisle. She told the manager what she had done and why and then she left the store. Then she called the office of Tom Smith, who was the president of Food Lion at the time, and relayed the story to him. He listened to her intently and thanked her for her actions. He promised to check into the matter and see that the store was properly cleaned so that this kind of thing would not happen. And, happy to say, it was a promise he kept.
Another memory of i have of the store is with Grandmother. i spent many weekend nights with Grandmother and she usually had some kind of sweet for me to enjoy. One night she realized she didn't have anything and loaded me into the car and off we went to Food Lion. She was going to get ice cream. Or ice milk as the inexpensive house brand was called then. It was late, at least to an 8 year old. In those days, Food Lion closed at 9 as did most everything else. We got there just at 9 as they were closing. Even though she explained to them she was just getting ice cream and knew exactly where it was, they would not let her in the store. So, we left empty handed. i do understand why we weren't allowed in from the employee's perspective, but it was rather disappointing to a young boy and his Grandmother.
From that episode, i took away that it's ok to bend the rules every now and then if it helps someone out and makes their day better. When i worked at a video store in the 90's, if someone showed up as we were closing or right after we'd closed, i would let them in because i knew the disappointment of being just a few minutes late.
The Food Lion i shop at these days is not too far from our house. If you look at Greensboro's demographics, it is not located in the best part of town like all of the high end grocery stores are. But, i shop there because the prices are very good. And i also shop there because, at least in my experience grocery shopping, they have one of the nicest, most genuine staffs around. Every person i encounter there is pleasant and usually smiling. They are easy to talk to and always answer my questions. i can tell from the banter between employees that they have created a good work environment for themselves and it shows. They make my grocery shopping experience an enjoyable one and that's why i keep going back.
Chek Soda. Carts with license plates. Ice Milk. Good memories. Thanks for that, Ralph Ketner!
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