Supermarket opening times (Light Hearted)

I can’t say I was sorry when our local midweek half day closing ended though. It was on a Wednesday here and Tuesday in the town where I worked and I kept getting caught out.

And how I hated the Saturday shopping hours in Germany. We worked long hours with a hefty commute Monday to Friday then couldn’t have a lie in on a Saturday because everything shut at lunchtime for the weekend.

So many changes. When we were first married in the early 60's hubbie and I uksed to get the bus on Christmas morning to go for the day to my parents. Stayed there overnight and got bus back home on Boxing day.

Before that can all too well remember that 1st January was a normal working day - indeed I actually started a new job one year on that date - difficult after normal teenage celebrations on NYE!!

I worked on Saturdays in a Sainsbury's mid 70's. Store closed prompt at 4pm on Saturday and remained closed until Monday 9.00 am.

I find the hysteria surrounding pre-xmas food purchases really bewildering - particularly as those that can afford those enormous loads obviously have lots of storage, fridges, freezers, etc. Surely, it is easy enough to plan, in advance, for a weeks worth of food to be brought home several days early. My last shop prior to xmas was a delivery on Sunday 19th December and the next one was on 31st December. In between all I required was some milk and bread.

JackyB

Sorry - not sure where "shut all day Wednesdays" came from.

Our local post office and Butcher used to shut all day Wednesday

I remember going to a small newsagent as a child with some pocket money on a Sunday morning. I asked for a bar of chocolate but was told that I couldn't have one due to trading laws. I pointed to something else, but no, I couldn't have that either. It all seemed complicated and unhelpful. Can't recall what I chose in the end, if anything.

Auntieflo

My parents had a corner shop in the early 60's, selling sweets, ice cream, some frozen veg, cigarettes and newspapers. Customers, without fridges, would ask if they could collect their ice cream, or frozen peas, on Christmas day.
The shop wasn't open, but there was frequent knocking on the door until about 3pm, when mum, dad, and my brother had their own dinner. Often joined by an aunt and uncle.

My Son in law's GP's had this when they owned a newsagents shop - they had customers banging on the shop door on Xmas Day wanting to buy Fags or milk. If they didn't answer the cheeky buggers would go to the back door and bang on that until they answered as they lived over the shop!! In the end they used to open up for two hours on Xmas Morning just so they could get some peace.

And now there's Bank Holiday Tuesday (yesterday). On the way home from DDs I needed milk.
At 18.30 followed another car into the supermarket only to discover it was closed.

I remember when all the shops closed at 5.30 or 6 on a Friday at the latest, they shut at lunch time on a Wednesday around here too. I used to love Wednesday afternoons in the bank where I worked as it was the only time it was quiet and we had an easy day and the manager would sometimes let us go home a little earlier. As children we would walk miles to a tiny little sweet shop that opened for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon for a quarter of sweets.
Once the shops closed on Christmas Eve my mum & Grandma never went out shopping for nearly a week, we just lived on what we had got in, we had a fridge but my grandma didn’t, she had a big pantry with a marble slab. no freezers either but we managed and very little food got wasted. We had a lovely milkman who delivered very early so no need to nip out for a pint of milk and end up spending a fortune on things you don’t really need!

We still have some shops in the village that shut for lunch, and a half day on Saturday. But it is Wales after all

We have a(somewhat decimated now) fabulous market here in Chorley it used to be the envy of the north!! People would travel from miles away to visit the flat iron market on a Tuesday until the car park was swallowed up by......car parking! But our cattle market has expanded throughput the town now and semi pedestrianised former high street holds stalls on Tuesdays and sometimes a continental market in summer but it's not open every day!!!! Tuesday Friday Saturday only veg etc is on stalls run by local producers always has been! Used to make me snigger at some friends from Cirencester years ago who ranted and raved about their new "farmers market" which was miles out of town and full of trendies selling really awful stuff they thought was "farmer-y" !!! Overpriced and I'm not sure that avocados and prepacked quinoa with tiny bricks of badly made sourdough are a base crop in UK?.. may be wrong..............

ordinarygirl

I'm old enough to remember when shops shut at 5.30 and 6pm on a Friday. Half day closing and the co-op always shut between 1 & 2 pm for lunch
Never open on a Sunday. Shops that did open of a sunday (for newspapers) could only sell certain items. Years later when Sunday opening was allowed, the restricted items continued. I can't remember which but it was either loose tea or teabags - but one or the other could not be sold on a Sunday. Solihull Council fined a major supermarket for selling one of them on a Sunday . The same council by the way that fined for some shop for selling fruit when the label indicated pounds and kilos and not just kilos!

Ha haaaa! 🤣🤣🤣 I was tickled pink when the rules meant one could buy a " girlie "mag on a Sunday - but NOT a bible🤣🤣🤣🤣 only in (no sex please we're) Britain!!!!!

cc

Yes, I'm sure that shops were shut for much longer years ago, definitely Boxing Day though I'm not sure if they were shut on New Year's day.
It really is mad that we all buy so much food for such a short break, I'm as guilty as anyone else and I can't get everything in the fridge at the moment. Next year I'm going to make more of an effort to do less food shopping.

*

1 January definitely did not used to be a Bank Holiday. I just looked it up. It was declared a holiday in 1974.

Here in Kansas, in those days, shops closed at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. and were open late one evening, Thursday. You could catch the bus and go downtown and shop late (probably 9:00pm) and catch a bus home. You could go to the grocery store after work and shop till 8:30 at night. Other than that, shops were closed Saturdays at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. and never open on Sundays or any holidays. You are absolutely right about American consumerism. We focus so much on our individualism that we lose something. I think the stores should be closed more. I was appalled to find out a friend always took her daughter's out shopping Thanksgiving afternoon. I didn't even realize that many places were open. The day after Thanksgiving is a great shopping day, and I used to be all about it, but Thanksgiving? That's for for food and family and watching football.

I remember shops closing one afternoon and Sundays. Otherwise opening 8 am til 5.30 or 6 pm.
We had no refrigeration. Milk was kept cool by putting it in a bowl of water and covering with a muslin cloth and meat in a ‘’safe’ hung outside in a cool place. We had a larder with a marble shelf. We used to go shopping almost daily.
Someone mentioned postman. When I was a child a stamp for a letter was 1d. One penny. And if you posted something local in the morning it would arrive in the afternoon.. very few phones those days. Had to find a phone box.

I'm sure I remember food stores closing at 1 pm on Saturday and nothing opened on Sunday. It was a very curtailed bus service on Sundays too. Nothing was open on Christmas day and no trains and limited buses. I was a Nurse in 1957 and it was hopeless trying to get to and from work even on public holidays as well as Christmas and New year's day. All shops closed at 5 pm Saturday and didn't open till Monday morning.

No, Knittynatter; this was some years ago, and the library was, and is, for students only. My local library where I now live is a 'warm space' and has tea and coffee, and mince pies - very welcoming!

Rosina

I don't see why some supermakets are open 24/7. Who needs to shop at 3 am? If they were open from 7 am to 10 pm that surely would cover every single shift pattern and save a great deal on staffing, lighting etc. I was pleased to see that our local giant supermarket has now cut its hours to something a lot more sensible. Our local university was planning to open the library for twenty four hours - the outcry was such that they dropped the idea quickly. There is surely such a tiny demand for services like shops and libraries in the small hours - how can opening be justified?

I wonder, was the library going to be open as a ‘warm space?’

I'm old enough to remember when shops shut at 5.30 and 6pm on a Friday. Half day closing and the co-op always shut between 1 & 2 pm for lunch
Never open on a Sunday. Shops that did open of a sunday (for newspapers) could only sell certain items. Years later when Sunday opening was allowed, the restricted items continued. I can't remember which but it was either loose tea or teabags - but one or the other could not be sold on a Sunday. Solihull Council fined a major supermarket for selling one of them on a Sunday . The same council by the way that fined for some shop for selling fruit when the label indicated pounds and kilos and not just kilos!

Grandson works in Aldi. He told me that anything with a short shelf life would be half price or less from 23 rd Dec. My daughter shopped even more cheaply just before shops shut on Christmas Eve.
Aldi car park was full early on this morning.
I will go out tomorrow (Wednesday) for milk and veg.
I applaud those shops which close for at least two days. Staff deserve a break.

My Dad was a postman and had to make deliveries on Christmas day. It was the best day for "tips" and offers of drinks.

People pile up a trolley or two as if expecting some kind of medieval siege lasting 6 months or more. AND I have witnessed an xmas lunch hostess reduced to sobs and sniffles because "I forgot to get a jar of cranberry sauce - noooooooo cranberry sauce!"

Give me strength........

Yes, in my childhood shops were closed on Sundays and on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, some on 2nd January as well, but Boxing Day was not a public holiday in Scotland at that time, nor was Good Friday.

In Denmark until the late 1960s shops closed at 12 noon on Saturdays, were closed on Christmas Day and the 26th December, and on New Year's Day. On Christmas Eve, they closed at 2 p.m. instead of the normal closing time of 5.30 p.m and on New Year's Eve at 4 p.m. Good Friday everything was closed, as on Easter Sunday and Monday.
Restaurants could serve food on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, but not play dance music - night clubs, theatres and the circus were closed.

All that has changed now, and the young generation of my family cannot believe it possible to live without shops being open on Sundays!

I also wonder how people would cope nowadays. When I was growing up, shops were closed Sundays, half day one day a week, lunchtimes and Bank holidays, Christmas for at least two days and sometimes longer depending on the days it fell and New Year likewise, living now in Scotland the 2nd of January is always a holiday. I appreciate that some people due to low income can only shop day to day, but that's what we used to have to do anyway not many had a fridge and even fewer had a freezer.

I did my last supermarket shop on the Monday before Christmas and took a half hour to go to the veg shop on the Friday. I've no plans to food shop for at least another week.

I don't see why some supermakets are open 24/7. Who needs to shop at 3 am? If they were open from 7 am to 10 pm that surely would cover every single shift pattern and save a great deal on staffing, lighting etc. I was pleased to see that our local giant supermarket has now cut its hours to something a lot more sensible. Our local university was planning to open the library for twenty four hours - the outcry was such that they dropped the idea quickly. There is surely such a tiny demand for services like shops and libraries in the small hours - how can opening be justified?

I remember shops shut every Sunday and when I lived in Germany the shops weren’t open on bank holidays full stop my oldest has just got back from holiday just needed milk etc he was surprised so many open today when no need he was going to corner shop until neighbours told him that supermarket etc all open and he says he was shocked how many ppl were food shopping today as he said to lass on till before him and wife went on holiday they filled everything up he just needed milk and she said ppl were waiting for it to open. He said bet big bosses not working lol