Yesterday my colleague TW paraphrased Yogi Berra in
describing the new Columbia Wegmans store. “It’s so busy that nobody is going to
go there,” he commented after seeing the queue of cars waiting to get into the
parking garage. He opted to take a pass.
I had a decidedly different experience less than an hour later.
The store was still busy but the traffic was moving and I was immediately directed
into a convenient parking space by a helpful Wegmans employee.
Though I did have a couple of items on my grocery list this
trip was really to just to check the place out. Prior to this visit, the
only other Wegmans I had been in was their store in Hunt Valley
The Columbia Wegmans is nicer. For one thing, Hunt Valley
Though I wasn’t intending to pick up dinner, a pass through
the Market Café soon changed my mind. I picked up a pound of Italian sausage
with peppers and onions and half pound of Kansas
City rice for $9.53. It was plenty of food for two
people.
It occurred to me that it’s not only
the existing grocery stores that should be concerned about this new competitor.
Wegmans could alter the paradigm of the HoCo loco carry-out business as well. Why
settle for pizza when, for the same amount of money, you can get Tuscan ribs or
Etruscan salmon?
On my way out the door I stopped to check out the grocery
cart escalator. I had read that it had broken down on opening day so I wasn’t
surprised to see an employee stationed at the foot of the escalator helping
customers acclimate to this new technology. It seemed to be working just fine.
“It was only down for about a half hour on opening day,” the cart guy told me. That apparently was just long enough to get the attention of the Explore
Howard reporter, Pete Pichaske
