A few months ago I mourned the sudden loss of our local grocery delivery option, SimonDelivers. During the past few months I've used another delivery from another local grocery store chain, Lunds and Byerly's. While the food was just fine, their website is horrible to navigate and unlike SimonDelivers, you had to be home for them to make a delivery, and the only coupons they'd accept was their own store coupons.
In late August, it was announced that Coborn's, a family-owned grocery chain, headquartered in St. Cloud (north of the Twin Cities about an hour) had purchased SimonDelivers and hoped to be up and running in October. My coworkers who also used Simon were as overjoyed as I was. Only one of the group of four regulars actually plans to stick with Lunds and Byerly's. While I'll probably use them occasionally, especially for special meat or cheese items, I'm looking forward to my first grocery delivery with Coborns.
This past week I got an email rhat said I was one of the first customers who could order. They wanted to test their systems before going full throttle. Unfortunately, I'd just done my biweekly shopping less than a week previous, so I didn't order anything. But today, I was able to go online and start building my grocery list. The website looks the same, acts the same, they're delivery policy is the Simon policy -- we don't need to be home unless we're ordering alcohol or cigarettes. And, I think I can use coupons. Plus, they dropped down the delivery fee to $5. I'm guessing it'll go up eventually, but hey, every little bit helps.
What this says though, is SimonDeliver's president really hadn't tried everything she could to keep service going. If she had tried everything, she would have sussed out that Coborn's might be willing to buy them out. And, they could have avoided a disruption in service.
But, the bottom line is, my life just got a little bit easier. I'll take every little bit I can get.
