TMSG: Customers Get Free Groceries When Registers Crash

It started as a nightmare for grocery shoppers at a Hannaford supermarket in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, but it turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As customers filled their carts and baskets during a lunch rush, the store’s cash register systems crashed.

No one could check out and long lines started to form and store manager Shawn Quelch says the wait to fix the technical failure could’ve taken an hour. So instead of forcing hungry folks to wait for that long, the store decided to let those in line take their groceries home for free. He estimates they gave away between $3,000 and $5,000 in goods, so there were lots of happy customers walking out of the store.

One of them was shopper Stevens Blanchard, who says, “Hannaford just took the worst shopping experience I’ve ever had and made it into one of the best.”