Grocery Store Gives Customers Free Food Rather Than Have Them Wait For Registers To Start Working

Image courtesy of (WashuOtaku)

Pop quiz, hot shot: You’re the manager of a grocery store and a computer crash leaves your cashiers without any easy way to tally up customers’ purchases, let alone process payments. Do you (A) tell customers they’ll have to wait; (B) pull out the old calculator; (C) give them their food for free.

You probably cheated by reading the headline, but the answer in the case of a North Carolina Harris Teeter store was C.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the store’s registers were down for about 90 minutes on Sunday morning. Customers were backed up and waiting for at least 40 minutes while the store tried to sort out the problem. For those waiting in line, the store provided snacks, including sushi rolls.

In the end, several dozen customers ended up getting their groceries gratis.

“Rather than inconveniencing our customers, we did allow complimentary groceries to approximately 60 (to) 70 customers who were in the store trying to check out,” a Harris Teeter rep tells the Observer.

“I think Harris Teeter handled it really well,” said one customer, who estimates he ended up with around $110 in free food. “They showed how much they cared about their customers and even the customers were – for the most part – taking it in stride.”

Thanks to Marc for the tip!

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