Last minute shoppers flood grocery stores before Thanksgiving

HOUSTON - Grocery stores are having one of their busiest days of the year as people make their last grocery runs before Thanksgiving dinner.

The crowd at the HEB on Buffalo Speedway in Houston was as big as ever with shoppers who said they were getting supplies for a much smaller family gathering.

“We divided and conquered for potato salad,” said Sandy Worrell who picked up last-minute ingredients Wednesday afternoon with her husband.

SIGN UP FOR FOX 26 HOUSTON EMAIL ALERTS

The store’s general manager told FOX 26 they are takings strides to prevent the spread of coronavirus while Thanksgiving shoppers pour through the doors.

“The busiest day on Thanksgiving week is always the Wednesday, the day before,” said HEB general manager Seth Gravemill. “We’ve added people at our doors to make sure that they’re constantly sanitizing baskets and also monitoring flow of customers. We’ve worked to expedite checkouts on the front end to get people moving through quickly so that we don’t have the bottlenecking on the front end. We’ve scheduled our fastest checkers.”

Many shoppers are preparing smaller feasts for a smaller gathering due to COVID-19 related recommendations.

“We’re not getting together with the grandparents,” one shopper told FOX 26. “It’s sad.”

“Just the two of us,” said Worrell. “We’re pretty sad about it. We have family that usually travels in from the DC area and big family here that we’re just gonna Zoom.”

FOR THE LATEST NEWS UPDATES, DOWNLOAD THE FOX 26 NEWS APP

HEB stays open until 11 p.m. Wednesday, but the hours are much shorter on Thanksgiving Day when they’re open just 6 a.m. to noon.