Metropol

scottishtv wrote: Wed 02 Feb, 2022 21.15 Before it closed, the butcher counter at my local Sainsbury's would package up steaks, chops, chicken breasts etc, label them and put them in a fridge in the chilled aisle. A totally pointless exercise that looked rather desperate.

That was an initiative about 12 years ago (around the time they changed all the counters to have that awful fake stencil on venir signage and changed the uniform for counters staff). The aim was primarily to have a product which could be sold on ecommerce (quite a lot of fulfillment for which goes on while the store is closed), and secondarily to have an instore offer when counters were closed but the shop was open, as well as for people who couldn't be arsed with a counter generally.

The good old days of having to take a ticket and wait for your number to be called are long gone! They don't seem to have been busy enough for those to be needed for years.

I remember the old sigs like this they used to have over the deli counters, the ones I remember were three sided so you could see it from every direction:



Was still one in the town centre Tesco into the early 00s from what I remember!

oh god i forgot about having to take an actual ticket and wait. you never really had more than one person in front the last ten years or so

james2001 wrote: Thu 03 Feb, 2022 10.25 The good old days of having to take a ticket and wait for your number to be called are long gone! They don't seem to have been busy enough for those to be needed for years.

I remember the old sigs like this they used to have over the deli counters, the ones I remember were three sided so you could see it from every direction:



Was still one in the town centre Tesco into the early 00s from what I remember!

There was one exactly as you describe but with digital numerals above the Deli counter I worked on in 2008. Think it was removed in 2012 when the store was refitted. People had an annoying habit of taking them even when there wasn't a queue, and you had to remember to advance the thing each time they did otherwise you'd end up in a mess.

Everything about that job was a pain in the arse to be honest. Probably the most hateful task was trying to reload the scales with sticky labels.

I do remember the digital ones too, though they don't quite have the nostalgia of the mechanical ones! Always remember the buzz and whirr as they flipped over. When I see a digital one I keep thinking of the hospital waiting room one Mr Bean flips over in an episode!

On the aformentioned town centre Tesco, the bit where you took the tickets still had the sign with the late 70s/early 80s Tesco logo (with the tick) on it well into the 00s as well, even though the rest of the store had been refitted in the mid-90s (though they never replaced the 70s signs on the outside of the store either- still there until it closed in 2007- apart from the one overlooking the bus station anyway, which did get replaced, with the pre-1995 logo, the refurb can't have been long before it was changed).

I'm sure I have memories of the clothing section being carpeted before said mid-90s refurbishment, but I may be misremembering. I do remember the incredibly strange double-beep/buzzing sound made before tannoy announcements as well- very hard to describe!

Morrisons at Redcar still have their old digital counter up (or did the last time I was in a few month ago) can see it here - https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x ... ip6BAg_EAM.

The whole of that shop is like a time warp to 20 year ago.

Zimba wrote: Thu 03 Feb, 2022 22.40 Morrisons at Redcar still have their old digital counter up (or did the last time I was in a few month ago) can see it here - https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x ... ip6BAg_EAM.

The whole of that shop is like a time warp to 20 year ago.

Were they a hangover from Safeway? I don't recall my local Morrisons having such a system installed.

EDIT: Exhibit A being this stock image from Morrisons Gibraltar in 2019, where it appears one is installed and still in operation

WillPS wrote: Thu 03 Feb, 2022 21.17People had an annoying habit of taking them even when there wasn't a queue

me, aged 7, used to just wander up and take a few and stuff them in my pockets.

bilky asko wrote: Fri 04 Feb, 2022 00.02

Zimba wrote: Thu 03 Feb, 2022 22.40 Morrisons at Redcar still have their old digital counter up (or did the last time I was in a few month ago) can see it here - https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x ... ip6BAg_EAM.

The whole of that shop is like a time warp to 20 year ago.

Were they a hangover from Safeway? I don't recall my local Morrisons having such a system installed.

EDIT: Exhibit A being this stock image from Morrisons Gibraltar in 2019, where it appears one is installed and still in operation

Don't believe so. Redcar was never a Safeway. It was built as a Morrison's in the 90's I believe. I can remember my local store (Tynemouth) definitely used to have a system back in the 90's so I believe all the stores had them at some point.

Zimba wrote: Fri 04 Feb, 2022 08.14Don't believe so. Redcar was never a Safeway. It was built as a Morrison's in the 90's I believe. I can remember my local store (Tynemouth) definitely used to have a system back in the 90's so I believe all the stores had them at some point.

Do you recall the replacement Preston Grange Presto that was around for about two years? That was an odd decision.

For reference the original Preston Grange shopping arcade (from which the name Presto was coined) was demolished and Argylle made the odd decision to build a replacement Presto on the edge of the site.

At the time, Morrisons were building a megastore (by 90s standards) with a new row of shops alongside (there's like a small street that juts out from the edge with a chemist, post office, vet, and a dominos).

Argyll themselves had a largeish Safeway in Whitley Bay and smaller one in North Shields either side of this.

Presto then closed shortly after Morrisons opened.


At least that's how I remember it...

Zimba wrote: Fri 04 Feb, 2022 08.14Don't believe so. Redcar was never a Safeway. It was built as a Morrison's in the 90's I believe. I can remember my local store (Tynemouth) definitely used to have a system back in the 90's so I believe all the stores had them at some point.

Do you recall the replacement Preston Grange Presto that was around for about two years? That was an odd decision.

For reference the original Preston Grange shopping arcade (supposedly from which the name Presto was coined) was demolished and Argylle made the odd decision to build a replacement Presto on the edge of the site.

At the time, Morrisons were building a megastore (by 90s standards) with a new row of shops alongside (there's like a small street that juts out from the edge with a chemist, post office, vet, and a dominos).

Argyll themselves had a largeish Safeway in Whitley Bay and smaller one in North Shields either side of this.

Presto then closed shortly after Morrisons opened.


At least that's how I remember it...