Opening a new location of any business is a trying job. I’ve been involved with the process a few times and in my experience something almost always gets overlooked or is delayed. This is a case of the latter.
Safeway, the national grocery chain, has had an on and off relationship with Hawaii since at least 1929. The sold their Hawaii stores in 1935 “because of the inconvenience of proper supervision.” But in 1963 they returned to Hawaii and have been here ever since.
In the past few years they’ve been upgrading their stores, at least those here on Oahu, the first one coming to my attention was the Kapahulu location and now the freshly opened Beretania location in my neighborhood.
I’d been waiting for this one, watching the construction progress with anticipation (fairly rapid contruction actually – at least by Honolulu standards). The older Safeway, just down the street, had been looking a bit long in the tooth compared to the Kapahulu location.
When the new Safeway opened last week I was ready to give it a try. The place was so busy opening day I decided to hold off a bit and finally found the opportunity to drop by on the 19th. At least I tried to drop by. I found to my consternation that there were no bike racks! I even asked the security guard out front, but he indicated there were none. To his credit he did suggest I lock my bike to a shopping cart return pen but given the nature of my bike and the type of locks I had with me that was a non-starter. I was thwarted.
I dashed off an email, probably too quickly, to the new store suggesting that given how green and healthful cycling is it seemed a shame that no bike rack had been installed and that I, as a cyclist, would be shopping elsewhere. I didn’t expect much in return.
How wrong I was.
I quickly received a reply which stated in part, “We agree with you on the merits of cycling as a viable means of transportation, and thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.”
Sweet. It went on to say that racks were part of the plan but they hadn’t been installed prior to the grand opening. As I said at the top, I can certainly understand details getting lost in the haze which sets in during a business opening. Been there myself.
The story gets even better. Today I received another email with a picture of the fully installed bike rack! This really goes above and beyond the call of duty and I’m happy to report it here. Take a look…
This is a much better rack than the one at their old location and it shows they’ve actually given some thought to the needs of cyclists. Way to go Safeway!
I don’t know who on staff actually replied to my query nor do I know who took the picture (perhaps the same person) but I want to thank you (both) for brightening my day. It’s great to know that there are still folks willing to go that extra step to show their Aloha!
And yes, I’ll be checking out the new Safeway soon – with my bike.
Slower, cheaper, less useful…