Charlotte Hall installed self-checkout a few weeks ago. I’m guessing they are not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.
The self-checkouts are likely from California, not something new.
Here is the issue with McKays. They have always had a lot of support because of being a local business, in spite of not always being competitive. Take Leonardtown for instance. When that opened it was a fairly premium store. Slowly over the years it has slowly declined to where it is now. The stores have always had a slight bad produce smell to them, higher prices than national chains, and worse customer service. However people supported them because they were a local business. Now you can't complete a whole grocery trip there, so the issue is forced.
Then you compare it to Leonardtown Food Lion. It is nice, clean, and well stocked. It is owned by Giant now, so it has good brands at prices that are the same or lower than Walmart. The only way McKays could compete is to move upmarket with almost a Whole Foods experiance. Their Leonardtown store started with almost that intention, but has declined over the years.
That is kind of the pattern though. The Hollywood store was amazing after they renovated it. It was like nothing in the county, had a ton of premium stuff, a nice butcher and seafood department, and great liquor store. They even made great doughnuts. I remember taking relatives visting from Baltimore to see it and pretty much went there every day. Then 6 months in, it started to decline with yellow signs everywhere about not being able to buy prepared foods with food stamps. Now pretty much the whole deli, butcher, bakery, prepared foods, etc is closed or has one person working all the stations. They advertise pizza night on their outside sign, but have not had pizza in months. They did not have "internet" for weeks to take apple pay. The store is half stocked, and the prices are double every other store. Like 10 dollars for a frozen pizza.
Then they opened the California store and I want in and was like "Holy Hell, this is almost as nice as Harris Teeter". I was impressed they pulled it off. The issue of course is they were higher in price, and being in Leonardtown, there was no way I would drive past Harris Teeter and Giant to go there. I wonder how many people in places like Wildewood felt the same.
All other that said, I remember stuff like this happening with them in the past where they would not have food or there were rumblings of bills not being paid. They switched wholesalers at one point I remember because of it. They did however bounce back. I know the two Shoppers stores they had were bought from the wholesaler that owned shoppers and was looking to unload them..I assume they got a good deal.
They did get almost a million dollars in PPP Monday.
