So today I went grocery shopping at Harris Teeter at North Hills, the newest store in town. Now, I don’t really mind ordinary grocery shopping, but this was grocery shopping at its finest. Fine grocery shopping? It’s true, and I’ll list just a few of the reasons why the grocery store trip was one of the highlights of my day today.
1: I didn’t need my umbrella. Yes, it was raining, but I didn’t need my umbrella. They have covered parking. Harris Teeter has a parking deck! Rain, wind, snow, heat—-none of that matters when you enter the grocery store through the parking deck.
2: I got a meal in addition to my groceries. You know how they say you shouldn’t go to the grocery store hungry? Well, that doesn’t apply to this store. Of course they have an in-store deli with plenty of sushi, subs, and prepared foods. But here they also have an extra-long salad bar, a soup bar with 5 kinds of soup, and an Asian hot bar buffet with almost 20 items. And there’s even nice tables and chairs where you can eat your food while it’s hot. No need to stock up on those free cookie samples when you shop here.
3: You need a map. Seriously. This store is HUGE. And they actually have maps of the store in little map stands all around. But this is Harris Teeter, so it’s not the warehouse-store kind of huge; it’s huge and stylish.
4: This store has two levels. You can take your cart up and down in an elevator! Or you can take the winding staircase if you’re just there for an express lane trip. It’s one of those things you have to see to believe—-taking your cart in an elevator in the grocery store.
So I think we may possibly have a new tourist destination in Raleigh. Harris Teeter at North Hills, sightseeing at the grocery store. Just like me, a lot of the shoppers there today came because they were curious about the logistics of a two-story grocery store. Well, I’m here to tell you, it is big, beautiful, and worth checking out.
That’s Life in Raleigh.
