Speaking of Grocery Stores & How Terrible Kroger Is

My wife went to Fresh Thyme the other day in Avon. Frankly, had she told me beforehand, I probably would have discouraged this, as I have always kind of believed that Fresh Thyme was kind of like Whole Paycheck Foods, in that they cherrypicked their produce from their distributors and charged an exorbitant premium for that.

I was wrong.

She told me about the following things that distinguished Fresh Thyme from our beloved local dumpster fire Kroger.

1. There was an employee monitoring the parking lot and ensuring that it was kept clean. Please note the distinction between that conscientious practice and the practice of our local Kroger . . . letting trash build up ad nauseum and cleaning up approximately once per year.
2. Employees in every section looking for a reason to help. Again, I note the contrast with our local Kroger, who somehow manages to position employees in the middle of every aisle, stocking shelves, at the busiest times of the week. I mean, I'm no expert here, but it would seem to make sense to have your stocking operations done overnight, when the store has minimal customers. On the other hand, you could be like Kroger and do so at noon on Saturday and around 6 o'clock on week nights.
3. Employees who are actually trying to help. I don't know if it's a management issue with Kroger or difficulty finding quality employees at the wage they pay, but their employees seem to be surly (not always, but often). Fresh Thyme's employees actually made an effort to help customers. Quite a change.

This post could go on for days if I started enumerating all that is wrong with Kroger. Suffice it to say, something needs to change in that shopping center. When the people in the immediate vicinity don't want to shop at Kroger and instead will drive nearly a half hour to go shopping, there's a problem.