In St. Paul’s Midway, the long, nearly cart-less winter of every Cub customer’s discontent is finally over.
After weeks, if not months, of complaints about what appeared to be a near-complete lack of supermarket carts, the Cub at 1440 University Ave. W. recently rolled out dozens of the highly-in-demand wheeled wonders, which had dwindled down to little short of collector’s items. During the dry spell, the few customers who had scored carts would be approached by customers who had not as they bagged their groceries, leading to an awkward exchange near the cash register that looked a bit like panhandling.
Similar acts of desperation between the cart-wielding haves and cart-less have-nots unfolded in the supermarket lobby and parking lot.
“When I went shopping … I still couldn’t find a cart, and on the way out of the store an employee followed me to my car,” wrote a customer on Facebook on March 21. “That was kind of creepy. He wanted my cart, obviously.”
As winter wore on, customers approached store management for explanations and tried to find their way up the chain of command from there. Based in Providence, R.I., United Natural Foods, Inc. acquired Eden Prairie-based SuperValu, Inc., parent company to Cub, in 2018. On Feb. 14, a customer shared on Facebook a response from a store manager indicating that a concerned community member dropped off dozens of carts, and that Cub was looking to its sister store in Stillwater for more.
Still, the shortage continued.
The lean times fueled social media speculation that Cub did not intend to renew its lease in the Midway, a rumor that resurfaces online every few months, driven in part by Cub’s decisions in recent years to close its self check-out lanes and burrito bar and place cold medicine and other pharmacy items behind locked glass. Store managers and employees repeatedly denied that’s the case. Other rumors had it that the carts could be found at a nearby homeless encampment, or strewn about the Midway.
“I don’t typically delve into conspiracy theories, but I find myself fully immersed in this one,” wrote Don Allen on his blog, JournalOfABlackTeacher.Blogspot.com, on April 2. “The Cub Foods on University Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, situated in the vibrant heart of Midway, has been eerily devoid of shopping carts for over a month now. How can you shop on a Sunday after church and not have a cart — and only two cashier lanes open?”
Another Facebook user wrote on March 30: “Just went to Midway Cub Foods around 11:30 this morning. No carts in the entry. No carts in the parking lot. Self checkout no longer being used. One checkout line open! Felt like a store on the verge of closure! Anyone hear or know if this location is closing?”
Wrote yet another Facebook user on April 1: “None of this would fly in neighborhoods with different demographics.”
Promising signs of grocery life have finally blossomed with the first buds of spring. In the past week, the Midway Cub has added more than 100 carts to replenish its stash, which a spokesperson said were pruned by cart scofflaws.
“At our location on University Avenue in St. Paul, we have encountered some issues with community members removing carts from our parking lot and not returning them,” said Kristen Jimenez, a spokesperson for United Natural Foods, Inc., or UNFI, in an email last Friday. “To address this, we recently added 100+ new shopping carts to this store’s inventory and are also working with the mayor’s office and our local police department to find ways to reduce theft of shopping carts as much as possible.”
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