Blinding lights, hordes of people and 55 lobsters swimming in a giant tank. These are just a few things that greet you when walking into the somewhat new Wegmans location off of Fordham Boulevard.
Since opening in late February, Wegmans has become a much-beloved institution among residents of Chapel Hill, due to its excessive amounts of food. While many Chapel Hillians rave about the variety and wonder of Wegmans, I find it mediocre and exhausting.
Every time my mom asks me to swing by Wegmans to pick up anything from 10 different types of cheese curds to wagyu beef, I am overwhelmed with anxiety. First, I must navigate the dreaded roundabout and parking lot, hypervigilant about hurried Meadowmont moms in SUVs desperately needing their overpriced, mediocre poke bowls.
After securing a parking spot miles away from Wegmans in the football field-sized parking lot, I scurry into the store, trying to get in and out as quickly as I possibly can. Inside the store, I can never find what I need. I’m always asking listless employees where wheat bran is, never getting a correct answer, and finding it in the seltzer aisle. The atmosphere inside is a free-for-all, with frenzied customers grabbing what they can, not caring about who or what they knock out of their way. Organizationally, the store is a mess, with displaced items everywhere, unmasked customers (due to a loosely enforced mask mandate) and poor foot traffic management.
Even after I depart the store, my disdain for Wegmans lingers every time I take a dissatisfied bite into one of their soggy sandwiches or their frigid sushi rolls with blatantly processed tuna. The mediocre-at-best food quality cannot redeem the organizational horror of the store.
Simply put, the novelty of Wegmans falls short for me. I’d much rather shop in a calm environment without hordes of customers or obscure foods. Why do people love such an overstimulating and disorderly place? The mystique of Wegmans falls apart for me when faced with cold reality.
Photo by Walker Livingston/The ECHO.
