Utilitaire-12 task #8: Bike to the grocery store = Loblaws Maple Leaf Gardens
Note: I fixed the video from my commute so you can watch it without tilting your monitor. Also, true confession time: I've been dying for an excuse to film my commute ever since I got the new camera. I've also fixed and re-uploaded the damn thing about four times so far. I am now officially sick of it. If there's another mistake in it, it'll just have to stay unfixed.
My local No Frills is only 850 m from my apartment. Although MG is allowing two pedestrian swaps, it would not be in the spirit of the challenge for me to use one for this, and I didn't want to ride around before going grocery shopping just to make it count. So I decided that yesterday, I would visit the new Loblaws at what used to be Maple Leaf Gardens. It's a destination! There's a Wall of Cheese! It's also on my way home from work, and therefore quasi-convenient.
The store is at Carleton and Church, about 5 minutes from school. There aren't enough bike racks close to the door. Make that no bike racks close to the door. Grumble, grumble. As you can see from the picture above, there is plenty of space for more bike racks, and there are none at all on the Carleton side. Which is just plain silly, given that part of the old Gardens is now part of Ryerson University.
Update: It turns out there are post-and-rings on Carleton. I couldn't see them because of the scaffolding. There still isn't enough parking, though.
First impression? This is one of those grocery stores that aims to keep you inside and never leave. There's a Joe Fresh upstairs, an LCBO... somewhere. Even a medical centre. And a sushi bar. No cleaners, as far as I could tell, but I expect that's so you'll just buy new clothes when the old ones get dirty. You can buy food, things to cook it in, and the dishes to eat it from. It's a bit overwhelming. I'm sure that if I shopped there on a regular basis I would find my way around, but yesterday I felt like a lost puppy, wandering up and down searching for the cereal aisle.
I like to think I'm an efficient shopper. I shop with Handy Shopper on my Palm Zire (because I'm so high-tech). I like it better than writing the list down because a) I can do a checkout and it will clear the checked items while leaving the unchecked items for another time and b) it will order the items by aisle. Which makes grocery shopping very quick -- until No Frills has one of its "redecorating" fits and moves the frozen vegetables or pasta*. At any rate, I can get what I need and get out without too much dallying.
However, yesterday I spent a good long while trying to find the Cheerios. I went from one end of the store to the other, and back and forth a bit. Then I finally saw this behind the cosmetics aisle:
It seemed a bit out of the way for something like cereal. And who puts the cereal and tampons in the same aisle? I somewhat suspiciously wheeled my little basket into the aisle and saw... not quite what I was looking for.
Aside from the fairly bizarre grouping of items, that sign does not indicate in any way that this was the extra-special crunchy granola cereal aisle, but that's what it seemed to be. No chocolate-covered sugar bombs in sight. I sighed and pushed on, looking for the real cereal aisle, and finally found it... in aisle 23. Which, as I'm sure you recall from elementary math, is hell and gone from aisle 12. No doubt because they don't want people comparison shopping and realizing that the organic crunchy-granola food is hella more expensive than the regular stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just think that it's annoying and inefficient to not have like items near like. Anyway, I was happy until I saw the prices. After all that, I wound up not buying the cereal in the end because I balk at paying $7 for a box of Cheerios.
I was done with my regular shopping and wondered why I hadn't yet seen the much-vaunted Wall of Cheese. I didn't think the aisle of processed cheese slices counted. More wandering around ensued, until I realized it was probably in the deli/sushi bar/boutique part of the store. I had bypassed that area on my way in without really paying attention, focused as I was on reaching the veggies. But now I went back and saw...
Dude. Cupcakes. Lots and lots of pretty, pretty cupcakes. Perhaps this store should be a stop on a future Cupcake Ride?
I didn't buy any, remembering what happened to the last set of cupcakes I took home on my bike. I did buy a macaron. Mocha. Meh. It was too big, too stale, too much not worth the money spent.**.
Around the corner, beyond the deli, was my final goal: The Wall of Cheese.
Less disappointing. So. Much. Cheese. I decided on a nice cranberry cheddar and decided to leave. This is a dangerous section of the store, what with the cheese, and the cupcakes, and the breads, and the sushi... I did not make it past the Tea Emporium without buying several types of tea, but made it to the cashier with my slightly-more-than-sixteen items without doing much more damage.
Conclusion? It's pretty expensive for regular groceries, and I'm happy I have my No Frills for that. But I might pop by for treats during one of my Wednesday breaks. And check out the sushi bar. And the salad bar. And the prepared foods bar. You know, for Science.
I'm really glad I decided on the wide front basket, by the way -- it holds so much more stuff than the deeper basket on the Tank. That blue bag is quite big: there's a bag of milk and a whole chicken in there, along with a few other items.
I was planning to stop at the Bulk Barn at College and Yonge, mainly to take advantage of this coupon, but I was already overloaded and forgot to bring some small plastic bags. Another day.
Mileage: From Jarvis & Wellesley to Church & Carleton, and then home: 4.8 km/3.0 miles.
As I was already on Carleton, I took Carleton/College home. I didn't pass a single streetcar on the way, so no leap-frogging, and the hill at Ossington wasn't too bad, despite the heavy front load. I remembered another advantage to having the MEC Turtle light: the bags would have hidden the front light on the handlebar, so I hung the Turtle from the front of the basket.
*For several years, I managed to avoid buying cookies because they put all the candy, snacks, and cookies into the same two aisles. I never needed to visit them, so no impulse buys. Then No Frills rearranged the store and the cookies and candy are in the same aisle as the cereal. EVIL.
**I vow I have learned my lesson. No more grocery-store macarons for me. Only the tiny, delicate, exclusive ones from now on. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Note: I fixed the video from my commute so you can watch it without tilting your monitor. Also, true confession time: I've been dying for an excuse to film my commute ever since I got the new camera. I've also fixed and re-uploaded the damn thing about four times so far. I am now officially sick of it. If there's another mistake in it, it'll just have to stay unfixed.
My local No Frills is only 850 m from my apartment. Although MG is allowing two pedestrian swaps, it would not be in the spirit of the challenge for me to use one for this, and I didn't want to ride around before going grocery shopping just to make it count. So I decided that yesterday, I would visit the new Loblaws at what used to be Maple Leaf Gardens. It's a destination! There's a Wall of Cheese! It's also on my way home from work, and therefore quasi-convenient.
The store is at Carleton and Church, about 5 minutes from school. There aren't enough bike racks close to the door. Make that no bike racks close to the door. Grumble, grumble. As you can see from the picture above, there is plenty of space for more bike racks, and there are none at all on the Carleton side. Which is just plain silly, given that part of the old Gardens is now part of Ryerson University.
Update: It turns out there are post-and-rings on Carleton. I couldn't see them because of the scaffolding. There still isn't enough parking, though.
First impression? This is one of those grocery stores that aims to keep you inside and never leave. There's a Joe Fresh upstairs, an LCBO... somewhere. Even a medical centre. And a sushi bar. No cleaners, as far as I could tell, but I expect that's so you'll just buy new clothes when the old ones get dirty. You can buy food, things to cook it in, and the dishes to eat it from. It's a bit overwhelming. I'm sure that if I shopped there on a regular basis I would find my way around, but yesterday I felt like a lost puppy, wandering up and down searching for the cereal aisle.
I like to think I'm an efficient shopper. I shop with Handy Shopper on my Palm Zire (because I'm so high-tech). I like it better than writing the list down because a) I can do a checkout and it will clear the checked items while leaving the unchecked items for another time and b) it will order the items by aisle. Which makes grocery shopping very quick -- until No Frills has one of its "redecorating" fits and moves the frozen vegetables or pasta*. At any rate, I can get what I need and get out without too much dallying.
However, yesterday I spent a good long while trying to find the Cheerios. I went from one end of the store to the other, and back and forth a bit. Then I finally saw this behind the cosmetics aisle:
Aside from the fairly bizarre grouping of items, that sign does not indicate in any way that this was the extra-special crunchy granola cereal aisle, but that's what it seemed to be. No chocolate-covered sugar bombs in sight. I sighed and pushed on, looking for the real cereal aisle, and finally found it... in aisle 23. Which, as I'm sure you recall from elementary math, is hell and gone from aisle 12. No doubt because they don't want people comparison shopping and realizing that the organic crunchy-granola food is hella more expensive than the regular stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just think that it's annoying and inefficient to not have like items near like. Anyway, I was happy until I saw the prices. After all that, I wound up not buying the cereal in the end because I balk at paying $7 for a box of Cheerios.
I was done with my regular shopping and wondered why I hadn't yet seen the much-vaunted Wall of Cheese. I didn't think the aisle of processed cheese slices counted. More wandering around ensued, until I realized it was probably in the deli/sushi bar/boutique part of the store. I had bypassed that area on my way in without really paying attention, focused as I was on reaching the veggies. But now I went back and saw...
I didn't buy any, remembering what happened to the last set of cupcakes I took home on my bike. I did buy a macaron. Mocha. Meh. It was too big, too stale, too much not worth the money spent.**.
Around the corner, beyond the deli, was my final goal: The Wall of Cheese.
Conclusion? It's pretty expensive for regular groceries, and I'm happy I have my No Frills for that. But I might pop by for treats during one of my Wednesday breaks. And check out the sushi bar. And the salad bar. And the prepared foods bar. You know, for Science.
I'm really glad I decided on the wide front basket, by the way -- it holds so much more stuff than the deeper basket on the Tank. That blue bag is quite big: there's a bag of milk and a whole chicken in there, along with a few other items.
I was planning to stop at the Bulk Barn at College and Yonge, mainly to take advantage of this coupon, but I was already overloaded and forgot to bring some small plastic bags. Another day.
Mileage: From Jarvis & Wellesley to Church & Carleton, and then home: 4.8 km/3.0 miles.
As I was already on Carleton, I took Carleton/College home. I didn't pass a single streetcar on the way, so no leap-frogging, and the hill at Ossington wasn't too bad, despite the heavy front load. I remembered another advantage to having the MEC Turtle light: the bags would have hidden the front light on the handlebar, so I hung the Turtle from the front of the basket.
*For several years, I managed to avoid buying cookies because they put all the candy, snacks, and cookies into the same two aisles. I never needed to visit them, so no impulse buys. Then No Frills rearranged the store and the cookies and candy are in the same aisle as the cereal. EVIL.
**I vow I have learned my lesson. No more grocery-store macarons for me. Only the tiny, delicate, exclusive ones from now on. You gotta do what you gotta do.
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