BUSINESS UPDATES: Potter Construction; Westwood Village QFC

Two more business updates this afternoon:

POTTER CONSTRUCTION: Above are Gary Potter, proprietor of Potter Construction (a longtime WSB sponsor), and Renee Vo of Washington Federal. We photographed them this morning at the WF Morgan Junction branch, where Potter was receiving his check for a loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Though the program is already maxed out – awaiting an additional allotment from Congress – he told us he found out his company had been approved for a PPP loan the same day it was announced the program had run out of money. His company had several projects in progress when they shut down on governor’s orders a month ago; the funding will help him continue to retain his staff, who will resume those projects when construction businesses get the green light to resume work.

WESTWOOD VILLAGE QFC: We usually publish a grocery-store update on Saturdays but this is notable enough to get the word out now: The store just joined the list of those offering a pickup service. From the announcement sent to us:

This service is being rolled out at most QFC locations in response to the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, to offer more piece of mind for older and at-risk population, or anyone who doesn’t want to shop in store. Customers order online, we shop, you drive up and we put the groceries in your trunk,-all done. All our pickers have been trained to pick the best and freshest product on our shelves. If something ordered is out of product we are able to find appropriate substitutions and price match to original item. This service typically does have a service fee, but is waived during the stay-at-home order along with our bag fee.

We haven’t heard yet whether the chain’s Junction store has, or will have, this service too.

John Edwards April 21, 2020 (5:51 pm)

Not available yet. The nearest option is the Burien Fred Meyer and the next pickup time is 6 days from now. 6 day wait for someone to pick groceries?That’s absurd.

WSB April 21, 2020 (6:02 pm)

They launched it yesterday, per the store e-commerce rep who asked if we could announce this, so maybe you hit a web glitch. I’ll ak her.
Cbj April 21, 2020 (6:53 pm)

Really? these front line workers are putting their lives on the line and you are upset with them basically minimum wage folks who are out there, you sound privileged understand they are looking to hire imagine you could step up and be helpful be part of the solution versus gripingits that way for almost all of us and have learned to plan ahead even by a week
- John April 23, 2020 (4:32 pm)
  
  Look CBJ, I understand and appreciate these front line workers are putting their lives in danger doing this. It’s not a matter of privilege, but the fact that they put this service on line and it still takes a week to get anything. I could understand a day or two, but a week? That’s bad planning and management by Kroger. Not surprising seeing how the store’s quality has been waning over the past decade.How many pickers do they have? You can take 3 and run them a whole shift and knock out a ton of orders. The answer isn’t “well why don’t you go get a job there then…” Jeez. I would order if it was 1 or two days. But not for a week wait.
- John April 23, 2020 (4:38 pm)
  
  OK, they got it down to about a day to do pickup. That’s reasonable. That was my whole point was to not offer a service if they pickup is so far out. – Not making it some slam on the workers.
C.A. April 21, 2020 (6:56 pm)

I noticed the same, John. We needed groceries and had intended to go to FM, since we also needed household items less readily available at a grocery store, so I thought I’d give their online ordering+parking lot pick-up a try. I created my order, happily surprised to see they seemed to have everything in stock, went to check out, thinking it’d be a day or two wait (like Amazon Fresh, these days) …but the soonest available was at least a week out. Decided we’d take our chances and just drove over there, masks & gloves ready. Wasn’t too busy, thankfully, and they had almost everything (still no toilet paper or flour) we needed. I hope the new service this QFC is providing will be successful and prove beneficial to those less able to go out and shop for themselves. (my husband and I are in the higher risk category, so would rather not go out, but just try to take necessary precautions where we can.)
- ACG April 22, 2020 (9:41 am)
  
  These delivery and pick up services are great, but you do need to plan ahead- most are running a few days out. So, waiting until you are out of items and expecting same day service isn’t likely to happen. Once you figure that out and plan your order ahead, it works fine. If you want to avoid going into the stores, you just need to change how you think about shopping and plan ahead for it. I’m grateful for the grocery workers, Instacart shoppers, etc who work hard to make sure these options for food delivery and pick up can happen.