Dear Fiesta community,

We need to ask you for a favour.

We need to ask you to temper one of the things that we both cherish most about Fiesta. The social interaction.  

Please stop socializing in the store. 

Get in and get out. Nobody gets hurt. 

Please don’t bring more people from a single household whenever possible.

Please don’t come more than once/week. We love seeing you and we know it’s comforting to shop. Still. Please do it less often. Plan and shop for at least a week at a time. Two weeks would be better.

We’re removing our “express” lane to nudge people towards fewer, bigger shops.

There will be lineups inside and outside the store.

Please maintain social distance in the lines. 

And please bring an extra dose of patience. 

Dig deep

Our observation is that 5 out of 6 people waiting in line are holding it together. Many share their gratitude and support. Right now, this means the world to us. 

That sixth person, probably anxious, understandably frustrated, likely tired, and sometimes full of great ideas, isn’t always helping. 

Please try to remember that we’re a grocery store. A hyper-customer-centric one, sure. But really just folks who order food, put it on shelves, help you find ingredients in aisles, cash customers out and carry bags to cars. Until a few weeks ago, anyway.

Nothing could have prepared us to do the same job faster, for more hours, piling on new strategies, tactics and services (security?) daily, while managing the same stress and uncertainty everyone is facing. It’s exhausting. And we’re acutely aware of our heightened exposure risk. 

No choice, really. 

So we’re digging. Trying to mentally reframe our role. To make the surreal make sense. 

You know how people are adjusting to isolation by reframing sitting on their couch as a much easier civic calling than that of previous generations who have had to go off to war? 

Us too. But our role is to come into contact with thousands of people per day. 

There’s one thing people can do to help us do this job better. Boost morale. 

Remember to smile at our staff. Share some thanks. Pretend you’re the spirit of patience. Help out a fellow customer. 

If you’re feeling anxious, these activities might just help you too.    

No matter how you slice it, we’re all in this together. That fact can work for us or against us. But we think our community is good enough for it to work in our favour.

See you in the aisles!