Non-fast food drive thrus

[cwm]

This was raised early in this thread - can you go through a drive through on a push bike?

I've been to several fast-food drive-throughs and no, you can't. Some of them rely on pressure sensors to notice when a car arrives, which a bike can't trigger. Also, it's a liability to serve through a window anyone who's not in a car for most fast food places. Unless you're on a motorcycle, which is fine. Never understood that...

For a bank or a pharmacy, it's probably not a problem to go through on a bike, though.

I don't know about a grocery shop or liquor store, I've never stopped and thought about that too much.

[GlitterIsMyDrug]

I would love a drive through liquor store, for a myriad of reasons, but the main one is that dragging your kids into a store full of shiny glass bottles is a complete nightmare. When my kids were still in the touch-everything-shiny phase, I had one time that it was a necessity (or near to one) to go into a liquor store. My kids had never been there before. I was having a party, and my husband had been sent out of town for his work on short notice.

My older kid was in a stage where she declared every single thing to be her favorite. We walked into the liquor store, and she declared, "This is my FAVORITE store!" in a loud voice. The cashier was still laughing when I went up to pay for my wine.

So that particular story is funny, but most of the time, until recently, I avoid buying wine at all unless I absolutely have to. I'll ask a friend to pick it up for me, or I'll go after my husband gets home from work. But it would be wonderful if there were a drive-through.

I find that hilarious! But yes, all the shiny bottles, I want to touch them all! And I know ours has lots of candy too. And if I understand children correctly, they enjoy candy.

Now, here's where my state keeps getting odd to outsiders, the whole time I was reading your story I was like "Just go to the grocery store", yes in our grocery stores you can buy all the same alcohol you can buy in a liquor store. Right there, usually near the soda aisle. Sometimes the selection is a bit more limited, but you'll find all your basics, anything crazy popular, and seasonal specialties. I've had several conversations of "I want to get something to drink with dinner", "Ok, we'll pick something up at the grocery store", "No I mean alcoholic", "Right, like I said, grocery store", "No, not like beer, like liquor or wine", "Yeah, all the grocery stores here have that" and then  , usually I just take them to prove to it to them. And the only time you can buy booze is between 2am-6am, used to be until noon on Sunday but we changed that.

[PastryGoddess]

In my state different counties have different rules.  Some counties allow alcohol to be sold in grocery stores, others don't

[cwm]

In my state different counties have different rules.  Some counties allow alcohol to be sold in grocery stores, others don't

When I was in college, the state finally allowed Sunday liquor sales to be up to the cities. The city the college was in didn't allow it, but all the surrounding cities did. Guess where everyone went on Sundays to get beer that they'd forgotten to get before the big game?

Where I live now, there's tons of suburbs spread out, so it varies city to city, but just across the state line, they've always sold liquor on Sundays, and always sold it in grocery stores. Actually, one grocery store right on our side of the state line has a liquor store right across the street. According to their interal systems, the liquor store is part of that grocery store, but according to state laws, it's in the other state that can sell on Sunday.

Also, weirdly enough, in that state you can buy beer and liquor at gas stations. It's just so weird to me to go to a QuikTrip to get some snacks and be presented with a Wall O' Booze.

[GlitterIsMyDrug]

In my state different counties have different rules.  Some counties allow alcohol to be sold in grocery stores, others don't

When I was in college, the state finally allowed Sunday liquor sales to be up to the cities. The city the college was in didn't allow it, but all the surrounding cities did. Guess where everyone went on Sundays to get beer that they'd forgotten to get before the big game?

Where I live now, there's tons of suburbs spread out, so it varies city to city, but just across the state line, they've always sold liquor on Sundays, and always sold it in grocery stores. Actually, one grocery store right on our side of the state line has a liquor store right across the street. According to their interal systems, the liquor store is part of that grocery store, but according to state laws, it's in the other state that can sell on Sunday.

Also, weirdly enough, in that state you can buy beer and liquor at gas stations. It's just so weird to me to go to a QuikTrip to get some snacks and be presented with a Wall O' Booze.

We got that in our state too! Circle K (one of our gas stations), has a "beer cave", it's the coolest thing ever. It's a huge walk-in with floor to ceiling beer. I just like standing in there in summer, great place to cool off.. We're the west, we were settled by cowboys (or something), and we like to drink darn it!

[Katana_Geldar]

We don't have alcohol at supermarkets here, but the bottle-o normally is near a supermarket anyway.

[MrsJWine]

Glitter, my home state is Wisconsin. No matter how tiny the grocery store, there is always at least an aisle full of whatever you can think of. Priorities!

Here, the only alcohol allowed outside of the state liquor store is beer. And it's not even really beer. The alcohol content is capped at 3.2%. It tastes like dirty water with hops added in. Blech.

[Jones]

Glitter, my home state is Wisconsin. No matter how tiny the grocery store, there is always at least an aisle full of whatever you can think of. Priorities!

Here, the only alcohol allowed outside of the state liquor store is beer. And it's not even really beer. The alcohol content is capped at 3.2%. It tastes like dirty water with hops added in. Blech.

When we lived in New Mexico we could get hard liquor at the late night gas station. Now, in Utah, we can't even get Mike's hard lemonade anywhere but the liquor store...which has short hours (11-7 Mon-Sat) and, as a state run store with a monopoly, gets to set its own prices.

Some days I miss my buggy, desert home! (Not just due to liquor, that makes me sound like an addict.. )

[Yvaine]

I would love a drive through liquor store, for a myriad of reasons, but the main one is that dragging your kids into a store full of shiny glass bottles is a complete nightmare. When my kids were still in the touch-everything-shiny phase, I had one time that it was a necessity (or near to one) to go into a liquor store. My kids had never been there before. I was having a party, and my husband had been sent out of town for his work on short notice.

My older kid was in a stage where she declared every single thing to be her favorite. We walked into the liquor store, and she declared, "This is my FAVORITE store!" in a loud voice. The cashier was still laughing when I went up to pay for my wine.

So that particular story is funny, but most of the time, until recently, I avoid buying wine at all unless I absolutely have to. I'll ask a friend to pick it up for me, or I'll go after my husband gets home from work. But it would be wonderful if there were a drive-through.

I find that hilarious! But yes, all the shiny bottles, I want to touch them all! And I know ours has lots of candy too. And if I understand children correctly, they enjoy candy.

  But yes, the bottles! All the shiny bottles with different colors of liquids inside. If my parents had drunk, I'm sure I'd have loved the liquor store as a kid too. As it was, my favorite aisle of any store was the shampoo aisle. Back then, it all came in clear bottles so you had all these bottles gleaming with green Pert and pink Suave strawberry and so on. It reminded me of the evil witch's potions from Snow White.

[BigBadBetty]

Glitter, my home state is Wisconsin. No matter how tiny the grocery store, there is always at least an aisle full of whatever you can think of. Priorities!

Here, the only alcohol allowed outside of the state liquor store is beer. And it's not even really beer. The alcohol content is capped at 3.2%. It tastes like dirty water with hops added in. Blech.

I was in college when someone from Minnesota was telling me about 3.2 beer. She told me they never bought beer at the convenience store because it was 3.2 beer. I thought she was pulling my leg. I didn't believe that all the breweries would make special watered-down beer.

[MrsJWine]

Glitter, my home state is Wisconsin. No matter how tiny the grocery store, there is always at least an aisle full of whatever you can think of. Priorities!

Here, the only alcohol allowed outside of the state liquor store is beer. And it's not even really beer. The alcohol content is capped at 3.2%. It tastes like dirty water with hops added in. Blech.

I was in college when someone from Minnesota was telling me about 3.2 beer. She told me they never bought beer at the convenience store because it was 3.2 beer. I thought she was pulling my leg. I didn't believe that all the breweries would make special watered-down beer.

I wouldn't mind so much if it actually tasted the same (hey, I get to enjoy more beer before I reach my limit!), but it doesn't. At all. We bought a 6-pack of my favorite beer when we first moved here, and we didn't yet know the laws. I was so dismayed that my favorite beer suddenly tasted so awful.

[Psychopoesie]

We don't have alcohol at supermarkets here, but the bottle-o normally is near a supermarket anyway.

It depends where you live in Oz.

My local Coles has a liquor aisle and the Woollies connects to a bottle-o (can enter it from the store or from the mall proper). At the other shopping centre I visit regularly, it's more like Katana_Geldar describes.

Many, if not all, of the small suburban grocery stores in my city also have a decent range of beer, wine and spirits, although the prices are a bit higher (in general, not just for liquor).

[mrs_deb]

Also, weirdly enough, in that state you can buy beer and liquor at gas stations. It's just so weird to me to go to a QuikTrip to get some snacks and be presented with a Wall O' Booze.

I was never so surprised as when I moved from Massachusetts (at that time, all alcoholic beverages only at liquor stores, and never on Sunday) to Illinois in the late 80s.  I walked into a 7-11 to get a newspaper and ran into the aforementioned Wall O'Booze.  I excitedly rushed up to the poor clerk.  "Oh wow!  You have liquor?  You sell hard liquor here?  Oh my gosh!  What's up with that!"

[Bethczar]

Heck, you can get wine and beer at Walgreens now. That freaked me out the first time I saw it.

[camlan]

Also, weirdly enough, in that state you can buy beer and liquor at gas stations. It's just so weird to me to go to a QuikTrip to get some snacks and be presented with a Wall O' Booze.

I was never so surprised as when I moved from Massachusetts (at that time, all alcoholic beverages only at liquor stores, and never on Sunday) to Illinois in the late 80s.  I walked into a 7-11 to get a newspaper and ran into the aforementioned Wall O'Booze.  I excitedly rushed up to the poor clerk.  "Oh wow!  You have liquor?  You sell hard liquor here?  Oh my gosh!  What's up with that!"

Massachusetts will now allow five (5) stores in a supermarket chain to sell beer and wine. For example, Stop N Shop has over 100 stores in Mass. Five of them can carry liquor. If you don't live near one of them, you have to buy from a liquor store.

It's a total shock to drive up to New Hampshire, where the supermarkets have aisles of beer and wine. And it's hard to explain to visiting friends from out-of-state that they have to make a separate trip to buy wine for dinner.