North Bay Grocery Store Shelves Refilled After Spate Of Coronavirus Panic Buying
NOVATO (KPIX 5) -- After struggling with high demand and panic buying earlier in the week, on Thursday the shelves on some North Bay grocery stores appeared to be recovering.
Last Monday, many stores were swamped with customers. The chaos continued in the toilet paper aisle, milk coolers, soap shelves and even produce departments. It was a level of panic buying not seen in decades.
Thursday is a different story. Large chain stores were doing better with many products restocked, but there are still several long empty shelves.
Nugget Grocery in Novato is a medium-sized store. Their inventory was much better. Potatoes are back, soap shelves have at least some soap where earlier there was none. Toilet paper remained a challenge. Area residents things are starting to calm down.
"This one is calmer, more mellow. Shoppers are here with a mission," said one shopper.
Another shopper said she's sticking to smaller stores.
"I'm too scared to go back to Safeway," she said nervously. "So I'll see what the rest of this store looks like."
Scotty's Market in Terra Linda is locally owned. Their eggs, water and dairy have all been resupplied. Produce is no problem, but Scotty's manager Stephen Franks told KPIX smaller is better.
"I've ordered over a hundred items and didn't receive one from the larger supplier. Thank goodness for some of the smaller suppliers," said Franks.
Toilet paper was in low supply at Scotty's, but at least there was some, said shopper Rick Sapp.
"We were hoping we would find some toilet paper, which we did and are very grateful for that. I think we are set now for a month," said Sapp.
For those looking to replenish their supplies, it appeared that the smaller local neighborhood stores in the North Bay were recovering quickly.
