Specifically at grocery stores.
This weekend I was grocery shopping, and it occurred to me whilst attempting to find the one or two whole bean offerings amid the sea of pre-ground coffee and k-cups that I haven’t seen coffee grinders in a grocery store in years. It feels like, growing up through the 90s and early aughts, most stores would have at least a few options to grind fresh, or at least the Bakers near my home did. However, at some point, they were seemingly removed everywhere.
Of course, my intuition tells me that it benefits stores to not have such specialized machinery in place so as to allow maximum flexibility with store layout, but I’m curious if anyone has an inside scoop.
the only grocery around me that had one took it out when they quit selling coffee that way, a few months into covid.
I was thinking exactly this: it’s a sanitation issue, and I’m pretty sure that any store that still had them got rid of them during Covid.
Personally, I refused to use them. I’ve worked in both service and hospitality, and I know how gross people are, even when they don’t mean to be.
We also have a less people capable of maintaining/repairing those machines. Parts are probably harder to get.
Expensive too thanks to the moron tariffs.