You don't buy that at a 7-11!

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I just called Wally and said if he was driving by a supermarket on the way home (knowing he has to drive by one from where he is) would he mind running in an getting some cottage cheese (we have some nice cantaloupe cut up in the fridge).

He said "if it's all the same to you, and we need it, I'd just as soon stop at the 7-11 or Mo's." Mo's is individually owned place down the street.

I said "You don't buy cottage cheese at a 7-11! I don't want to pay $10 for something there. I'll just get some tomorrow."

If they even had cottage cheese, I'd guess it would be right on top of the expiration date.

Today, the only thing I think I stop at a convenience store for is gas, then I don't even go in, just pay at the pump.

When I smoked, and drank, I'd go in for cigarettes and beer.

When I was a teenager, 18 or 19, I worked for about 9 months at Krausers, a convenience store chain in NJ. It was right next to the parking lot for a Shop-Rite, a NJ supermarket chain.

Besides smokes and newspapers, most of the business was milk, milk milk. Lot's of people running in for milk because they were running low.
Next was maybe bread....running low on bread....overpriced bread. Some regulars came in for a cup of coffee to go. I even knew when some of them were due to come around, and would put on a fresh pot.

Other than that, soda, kids coming in for candy, magazines, paperback books, nasty ice cream.

This one guy would come in and buy these nasty subs we made there. I couldn't believe it. Some would buy some cold cuts. Unbelievable too. Liverwurst was the worst, it would take you forever to clean the machine.

What do you buy at a 7-11 type store?

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@chai2,

Nothing in the last bunch of years, but when I tried to drive california in a day, or so, I did buy water, and, gasp, vitamin water - first I saw of it back then. I liked it.

Decades ago, and I do mean decades, I would leave the printing press at the university art department at 1 a.m. and head home, and stop at 7/11 for ice cream, chocolate syrup, and a magazine.

Hard waking up the next morning.

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@ossobuco,

All those stores have ATMs that dont charge fees and our bank matches those kinds. (Its a sort of way to get you in an the bnks are underwiting expansion loans for the stores ) We have Turkey Hills, WAWA, and REdners. 7=11's hve quietly left our area or have been subsumed by some other beings.

ATM and UTZ potato chips and little bottles of SPICEY V-8. Oh yeh, and the local papers and WAWA ONLY, the NY Times.
Anything else is pricier than food markets and produce stands

I NEVER BUY ANY FRUIT THAT IS INDIVIDUALLY STICKERED,WRAPPED< OR SLICED AND PACKED INTO A LITTLE PLASTIC CUP -Think of that extra line they had to add on

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Haven't seen a 7-11 around here for over 20 years. We now have gas stations with convenience stores attached.

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@farmerman,

Once in a while, in the summer, after I get gas I'll go in and get something to drink. Usually end up with a can of Arizona Ice Tea, since it's cheap and I just need something to wet my whistle.

That's like maybe 2 or 3 times a summer.

Once in a blue moon, when I've just left the house on a mission that will take a few hours, I realize I forgot to eat, and will undoubtedly become cranky at some point. I'll stop at Mo's to get a snack, trying in vain to find something not too horrible. I'll end up with a bag of overpriced trail mix, or salted nuts.

When I worked at Krausers, the manager once got me to go through the shelves, telling me to dust everything off. I found all these bloated cans. It was crazy. I guess that's what makes me think you can't trust anything there. The milk and bread were delivered daily, that was ok.

Maybe things are different now.

Oh! I've bought the occasional quick pick or lotto ticket too.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

Haven't seen a 7-11 around here for over 20 years. We now have gas stations with convenience stores attached.

When I say 7-11, I'm lumping in all convenience stores....Tiger Mart....uh....I can't even think of what else is around here......

7-11 just means convenience store to me.

I remember wawa's farmer....and Cumberland Farms....they're all the same. Just like some old time Texans call all soft drinks "cokes", I call them all 7-11's

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@chai2,

Arizona Iced Tea, as you say, it's cheap and delicious. That's the only thing. Then I discovered I could get it in big jugs at the grocery store and put it in the fridge. Still, it's nice after work to stop and get a cold iced tea for only a dollar.

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@Lola,

We stop for gas and the ATM (no fees, like farmerman said.) And I often pick up a package of M&Ms, too. (Plain.)

LOLA!!!

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@chai2,

I would never grocery shop at a 7-11 or a bodega UNLESS I found myself in a neighborhood where the grocery stores were all closed and I really really NEEDED an ingredient when someone was cooking something for a party or something on those lines. Since that's not likely to happen, these rare exceptions will be considered really rare.

Though I haven't done so in a long time, I don't mind buying sandwiches from a bodega though I'd never go in there to actually buy separate deli meats on any other occasion. I definitely would never buy bread at a bodega as their on the shelf selection has always been terrible. These bodegas use bakery bread for their sandwiches not their on the shelf bread.

When I lived on the upper east side, my biggest buy history from bodegas was Haagen Daaz or Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

All those stores have ATMs that dont charge fees and our bank matches those kinds.

In NYC, the ATM's at bodegas are notorious for having the biggest third party ATM fees.

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@tsarstepan,

Isnt it so easy to wak a few blocks to find an ATM from your own bank? New York is so friggin small. Hell, I shop for groceries by driving from your equivalent of Governors Island to Islandia

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We have UDF here. Twice, in a pinch, I've bought milk there. Both times it was sour. Thats' UDF: United Dairy Farmers. Rolling Eyes

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@thack45,

Ohio? When i first moved to Ohio, i was more than a little nonplussed to see UDF on the front of a building. Prior to moving there, UDF meant to me Ulster Defense Force, a particularly murderous and virulent Protestant unionist paramilitary. I didn't feel good about going in there for entirely superstitious reasons, so i never bought their milk

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Isnt it so easy to wak a few blocks to find an ATM from your own bank? New York is so friggin small. Hell, I shop for groceries by driving from your equivalent of Governors Island to Islandia

I NEVER use the ATM's inside of bodegas and unless you are a member of a really small community bank then yes, you're quite right, banks and bank ATM's are one of the most ubiquitous ... things on the NYC street scene. I guess only drunk people use the bodega ATM's as they're too blottoed (sic?) to realize they can use their debit card to make bodega purchases and such.

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@thack45,

thack45 wrote:

We have UDF here. Twice, in a pinch, I've bought milk there. Both times it was sour. Thats' UDF: United Dairy Farmers.

That's funny. They should be ashamed.... Razz

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@Setanta,

Up the road a piece from where you were, if memory serves. And they're like Starbucks down in Cincinnati... errrywhere.

Your story has all the right stuff for an excellent conspiracy theory, and would make a fine candidate for the obsession solicitation thread...

United Dairy Farmers is a FRONT, and they're . . . POISONING THE MILK!!

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wow, after reading through these posts, I wonder who's buying all the million and 3 other items in one of these stores.

I'm conjuring up in my mind (during my first cuppa) all the things I've seen for sale there.

The first thing that pops into my head are those individual packets of vitamin pills. Like who buys them?

Condoms.....do they sell condoms there? I bet they do. They must sell a lot of those.
Moving up and down the aisles in my mind I see the individual packs of chips, cookies, candy and the like. Do people usually go in specifically for that, or is it an associated purchase?

Then there's the dreaded grocery isle. Home of the bloated cans that cost 5 times as much as at a regular store.

Mostly though, like the vitamins, I imagine all the weird items. I can't even think of the names for most of them, just the weird items that are at the cap ends, and up near the register.

ROLLING PAPERS!
MY GOD, HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN ROLLING PAPERS!

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@chai2,

Those everpresent and weird offbrand ED and sex pill supplementals by the cash register kind of freak me out.

I also assume the energy drinks are a big lure as well as those energy supplemental pills located right next to the sex pills are a big lure for drunk college age New Yorkers (those not in the know on how to be scared about the ingredients of these nonFDA approved supplementals).

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@tsarstepan,

I think a lot of people probably buy something to eat but that probably depends on the road or highway. In California, I would drive highway 101, which took longer than the fast highway 5, but had (then, I've not driven it in about ten years) nothing but the main chain fast food places, and those were clustered somewhere near gas stations. Thus many people probably pulled off at both.

On or around 101, there were a great many family owned diners, sometimes involving taking an offramp and going a quarter mile or so - always my choice and an easy way of exploring the state. My memory is that there were relatively fewer chain fast food places (6 years ago), and a lot of people both don't want to search small towns and do want a one stop gas, pee, and munchie place. Thus gas stations or 7-11 type places for mostly junk. (Favorite diner then, the Mission Cafe, a mile or so off the Hollister offroad into the small mission town of San Juan Bautista. Best biscuits and gravy ever, great rest of breakfast, and good coffee.)

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You don't buy that at a 7-11!

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