Back when we lived in a high-rise, there usual process of getting large loads of groceries into the house was
take the groceries out of the car (or taxi for some people) as close to the door as possible
get the groceries into the building, next to the elevators
get them all into the elevators
unload them into the hallway on your floor, next to the elevators
carry them into your apartment
unpack and put away
It was tedious, but again, it was for the rare big groceries…and if you’re gonna do it, you might as well make it big!
Neighbours would occasionally help each other, but for the most part would just not disturb you and let you have the elevator to yourself so you could do the elevator run in one go. All in the same boat, so there’s no point being a prick about it!
There’s a supermarket and several specialty food stores in the 700 metres between my apartment and the metro. I have never had a problem simply carrying everything home. Even relatively big shops at the supermarket I can wrestle the 450 metres (about 500 yards) home.
If I had a car there might be some things I’d buy at the Costco, but I would still probably walk to the supermarket.
When I used to live in St. Henri, the IGA near my place was really crappy, so I would usually shop at the Métro (supermarket, not subway) in Westmount, 1.5 km away. The prices were just as good, the food was better, and they would also deliver.
There are also some initiatives to improve access to fresh produce, such as organizations that organize temporary markets or that bring baskets of produce to your house.
My wife’s grandparents lived in the city of Chicago. My wife still has that two-wheeled cart which belonged to her grandmother, and which was used for many many years to bring groceries home (though we never use it for that, it does occasionally get used for picnics and similar outings).
I lived near Boston for a while, with the grocery stores about ~1 mile away. Sometimes I would walk. Other times I would take my bike. If I went twice a week, I didn’t even have to carry much. For really big grocery trips I’d walk there and take a taxi back ($6 with generous tip).
Most of the walk would be through neighborhoods so the buses wouldn’t even take 1/2 mile off my trip. That wasn’t worth it when the buses only came by every 20 minutes. But there were plenty of other parts of the city where people lived very close to a major bus line that could take them directly to the grocery store and back.
You need to understand, this is a uniquely suburban-American lifestyle. I think most people in other countries consider it unusual to only buy groceries once a week. (And this may explain why the typical American diet is so unhealthy - not much fresh vegetables, and a lot of food that keep well.)
When I lived alone in Tokyo I’d stop by the supermarket every other day or so. I think most stay-at-home wives/mothers there buy groceries every day. Or if both of the couple work, one of them would groceries on the way back from home (that’s what my parents in Japan do).
And if you’re thinking this is a big waste of time - consider that grocery stores and supermarkets geared towards small purchases are much more efficient than a typical American suburban supermarket. They are much smaller (and therefore faster to go through), and the checkout lines move much faster because people aren’t buying a week’s worth of groceries. Also, if you use pubic transit, you’d most likely walk by a supermarket on the way home (in Japan there’s usually one right next to the train station), so it takes very little extra time to walk in and buy ingredients for dinner.
I didn’t know that UK, New Zealand and Australia at the very least were suburban America.
As a family we lived in a rural area - we’d go shopping once a month.
Before we got our car where we are now, we’d go shopping by bus and I’d carry a camping size backpack (young fit and stupid)
For perishables - once a week, then taxi home, wife would stay downstairs and “guard” groceries while I’d make the 3 or four trips up our 3rd floor walkup.
In Dubai the building we lived in had a great supermarket downstairs so we’d just take the lift down and if we were buying a lot, we’d just take the shopping cart back up to the apartment and then return it.
I have the Chicks in Chainmail anthologies, which have…interesting…cover art. Plus I have a large collection of science fiction and fantasy. AND I play pen and paper RPGs. I can discuss the various merits and drawbacks to playing an elf or dwarf. So Chronos is mine, all mine!
Seriously, when I lived in a city and was mostly without my own transportation, I took a duffle bag to go shopping. Not elegant, but I was able to fit quite a bit of stuff in that bag.
I always figured that was the idea behind the European grocery carts where you have to put a Euro (or whatever local high-denomination coin) in the cart to unlock it that you get back when you return it. You’d “rent” the shopping cart, bring your groceries home and then bring the cart back (or leave it outside and someone else would).
No, I don’t think you’re supposed to take the supermarket cart home. The Euro coin is just supposed to ensure you put it back in the row.
As for groceries in Manhattan or a big city, it’s a pain in the butt, especially if you drink lots of soda. Carrying a week’s worth of groceries AND six bottles of soda is murder on your hands.
I’d say most older people and women would have the carts like GaryM linked to. For some reason, I rarely saw men with those take-home carts.
We use thesebags: I can carry two heavy ones, or four light ones. I make my husband carry the pop (though we get ours in cans). You can get quite a lot of food in these things - even our larger grocery runs rarely use more than a handful of them, plus large things like cat litter and toilet paper on their own.
I’ve never in my life, not in the country where I live nor anywhere I’ve visited, seen or even heard of anyone pushing a shopping cart full of groceries all the way home from the store. Is this actually commonly done anywhere (going by some posts in this thread, it would seem so)? Doesn’t that piss off the store? I hardly think those carts are made to be dragged down the street. In fact, how does that even work? With the tiny wheels and the limited maneuverability, I’d be amazed if I could get one back to my house without incident.
Well, that was just my ignorant small-city-dwelling American guess-- I’ve never actually seen anyone doing it either. But in really dense urban areas, there’s probably enough customers to support a small grocery store that live in a radius smaller than a Wal-Mart parking lot, so I don’t see why at least some customers couldn’t do this.
Round where I live, I often see supermarket trolleys abandoned several blocks away from the supermarket, sometimes dumped in places like stormwater drains where they would be hard to recover.
