Since we covered the arrival of Amazon Fresh delivery in Shoreline here on the blog, I thought I'd try it out and let you know how it works. That, and the idea of having food delivered to your doorstep is magical in the way it only can be to someone who grew up after the era of glass-bottled milk and before Kozmo.com and Webvan.com had their brief moments of glory.
It's easy enough to shop on Amazon Fresh; like the main site, it anticipates, for example, that when you type "ground" you may well be looking for "ground beef." I decided to order about half our normal amount of groceries for this test, and included a variety of products, like toothpaste, half-and-half, strawberries, broccoli, lettuce, onions, avocados, yogurt and of course, ground beef. The minimum order is $30, and delivery costs $5, though after you've added $75 worth of products to your cart, delivery is free.
I didn't include any beer or wine, because you must be home to show ID, naturally; I wanted to try the "pre-dawn delivery" option because I was a bit enchanted by the idea of grocery elves visiting in the middle of the night.
And they did. Here's what was on our porch in the morning:
I had wondered if the delivery would be truly silent, or whether our very keen-eared dog would wake up and bark. Apparently the elves wear padded slippers, because none of us heard them arrive.
The containers are very large, which might not be apparent in the photos. There were three, and items were separated between them by the amount of coldness needed; one was insulated and included packs of dry ice, one was just packed with frozen ice packs, and one was simply empty except for a few items. It seemed like a lot of packaging, but of course these things are re-used over and over. The items inside came in thin plastic baggies within their containers.
Everything we received was as expected; the broccoli was fresh and firm, the strawberries, blueberries and blackberries were as good as what I'd have chosen myself at the store (and getting a package of strawberries with no bad ones is actually sort of rare, so that was a nice surprise).
Bridget the cat personally approved the tomatoes.
I should note that I placed this grocery order at 8:00 the evening before, and it came sometime before 6:00 this morning.
Overall, we're pretty pleased with this new shopping option; it's not always easy to get to the store after work, but you could certainly place an order during the day and have it arrive that evening or over night. Another plus was that I found myself much less tempted to impulse-buy. I knew what I needed, and wasn't tempted by the goodies you find while wandering around a store. Prices were about the same for most products, lower for some, higher for others; one negative feature is that by
not wandering around a store, you don't see items on sale that you might want to stock up on. There is a sale section, but I didn't see much of interest there.
Another not-so-great thing is the size of the delivery containers. I had to stack ours on the back porch for now. You can request that Amazon come to pick them up right away, though, or just swap them out the next time you order.
Have you tried Amazon's delivery service now that they're available here? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
We have reports from our friends over at Pets Energy, next to Central, that something is up over in that plaza. Apparently earlier today, an alarm of some sort rang for around 30 minutes at the Market, and possibly the sprinkler too. The Market was closed, and neighboring Big Lots was also closed. As of around 7 pm there was no power in the entire plaza.
We've been posting about an unfolding story concerning the future of the "old Ronald School" - an historic brick schoolhouse in Shoreline that currently houses The Shoreline Historical Museum. There are conflicting (or at least unresolved) reports about what the future holds for the old Ronald School. Shoreline Historical Museum seems to think it is going to have to move out of its location at Ronald School (which is owned by Shoreline Schools), while Shoreline Schools maintains that no decision has been made yet.
Here are parts of a couple of comments posted to the blog concerning this issue:
Janet Way wrote:
I urge all citizens and history enthusiasts to jump into action to Save the Museum! Send letters to Shoreline School Board. Send letters to Shoreline Enterprise and Seattle Times.
This place matters to Shoreline and the North Seattle area!
Anonymous wrote (excerpt):
In talking to dozens of parents of Shoreline elementary school children, only one could actually name where the museum was. Not one had ever visited it.
Meanwhile, every single parent knew where Shorewood was and at almost all had attended at least one event there (sporting, drama, or community).
I don't think the museum has done a good job reaching out to the community. As a future Shorewood parent, I don't care about the museum at all. I do care that my child goes to school in an up-to-date facility.