MDtR-Chicago

My main source has been Amazon Fresh, which has been much easier now that they've limited each address to once per 4 days. I've been getting all of my perishables there. Availability tends to be better during the week so I've tried to plan ahead. (Tried Safeway delivery once, waste of time. Most items out of stock, poor substitutions.)

For pantry, I've been trading off between Target, Walmart, CVS, and Rite Aid, as each one restocks.

It's been annoying but much lower risk than going to a physical store.

Much easier, too. Especially now that stock levels are mostly back to normal and you can find most of what you want within a day or two. I may never go back to shopping in-store again...

KathyWdrf

Did you try Safeway delivery through Instacart? With Instacart, you do have some control over the substitutions, i.e., you can either specify which product to substitute for another, or specify "no substitution," for each item you order. In addition, the shopper may message you while they are shopping and ask about specific substitutions. I've only shopped Instacart/Safeway twice thus far, but found it reasonably satisfactory both times.

And although my experience with Amazon Fresh has been very good overall (several orders), this is one of their weaknesses: they claim on the website that they will substitute items when one is out of stock, but IME they have generally not done so. So, for example, I order a gallon of milk (and it's in stock at time of ordering, otherwise it can't be ordered), but the specific brand and type of milk is out of stock at time of fulfillment, I end up with NO milk. That is when I turn to another store and put together an order that includes milk.

But then, the prices at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods are pretty reasonable. (Of course, there are some fancier artisanal items and such that are costlier, but also a lot of basics and store brands that are fairly priced.) On the other hand, when you order through Instacart, there's about a 20% markup over store prices, plus additional fees.

gaobest

Safeway diamond heights had no queue at 2:45p which is a big change from April. Wow.

squeakr

We took a taxi out there on Saturday and we’re delighted to see wide aisles - wider than a lot of other safeways- many employees cleaning everything in sight, and everything in stock. And everyone was keeping social distance thing with their masks on, which I understand is not been true in other parts of the marina.

A lot of the employees were new hires who had lost other jobs from the pandemic and were happy to have a decently paying job at Safeway.

Before we started shopping we went over to Fort Mason – no access to the pier but there are some benches there so we just sat and watched the tide roll in.

So if you’re looking for an alternative I would definitely consider that Safeway.

Eastbay1K

It is probably one of the few "non app" places left to hook up in the City in a legitimately open establishment, which, historically, is a substantial part of that store's clientele. How that works with masks, I'm sure someone will write about it sooner or later!
https://www.eventbrite.com/rally/san...s-irl-in-2016/

gaobest

I’ll always love how Marina safeway was in Tales of the City. I used to shop there in the 20th C but otherwise never go. I’m glad it’s still great.

gaobest

Wow. On Thursday 10a, no queue for Gus’ Market (17th & Harrison).
jump to 2:30p. Big queue for Target on Folsom by 13th. Short queue for Rainbow.

gaobest

5/23 Saturday 2-3:15p

rainbow (Folsom & 13th) - “short” queue of 10-ish people
gus’ market (Harrison & 17th) - zero queue
entry line for Best Buy (not grocery)

canyon market (Diamond near boswell) - 10-ish people
cheese boutique (Chenery near diamond) - 4 people and I’ll assume 1 person in shop at a gime

avedano’s butcher (cortland) - 4 people
good life (cortland) - 3 people

gaobest

5/27 Wednesday 3p - no entry queue for Safeways in diamond heights and Mission, 2 days in a row. So Safeway is definitely less packed compared to April :-)

DELee

Guess folks got tired of trying to buy even more toilet paper. Who knew?

David

Zorak

Plenty in stock at my local Safeway yesterday!

gaobest

ditto for the SF diamond heights.

gaobest

6/7 8:45a - weird queue at Gus’ Market (Harrison / 17th) - I’ll venture that there was an unexpected rush and they needed to wait for a LOT of shoppers to exit before they allowed more shoppers. I waited about 10 minutes and entered a nearly sparse shop where the main crowd was in produce. mostly instacArt shoppers by the time I exited at 9:25. I take my time when shopping despite having a list, and checkout only had 2 people ahead. I noticed one instacArter with a $346-ish grocery total.

gaobest

Zero line to enter safeway diamond heights today at 3p. Tons of lovely ice cream on sale...

squeakr

I’m going to go ahead and close it. If there’s any groundswell to reopen it I will, but it seems to be a list of one poster’s shopping experiences.
If you like to check wait times check the following website:

https://storequeue.com/

Thanks

Squeakr
Mod SFO