Morrison’s Local

After a day out in the gym and a jog back i always pick up some shopping
from this store.
I actually like shopping here and pick up bits regularly now as prices
are virtually the same as tesco 99p for tomatoes and £1.99 for
linda macartney vegatarian sausages as sometimes there hard to find.
the range is not brilliant but i dont expect it as its only a small store.
everything is displayed so its easy to find and they
also have a bakery section as have pigged out on the odd pie.
staff are lovely in here and always willing to help even to carry
my shopping to the counter.

Another day, another supermarket chain. Trying to mix things up in the way that one does when a weekly shop is the highlight of your week, I headed to this Morrison’s Local but left feeling somewhat bemused and confused. Wheely baskets that make you feel like you’re 70? Cleaning products and pet food in between tinned goods and fresh fruit & veg? Even tinier bag sections on the self checkouts than my usual haunt of Tesco on Market Street? Come on! The basket alone should come with a warning so that people pay attention to it rather than allowing others to trip over.
«Do you (ever) have anything positive to say?» I hear you cry into your laptops. Yes, yes I do. The hot food section looks like it would have been a godsend as a hungry student who never correctly calculated when lunchtime would fall during certain days of my timetable and the salad bar, providing you like that sort of the thing, would have been a godsend when I was both pretending to diet AND needing something to eat during my busy schedule. [Note: I never had a busy schedule, I was one of those arts students that everyone hated because I did about 8 hours a week maximum and moaned the entire time about the work I had to do.] Where was I? Oh yes — the ‘M’ range is also shaping up to be worth wandering into this shop of negatives; I have so far tasted the chicken goujons and potato waffles («What do you mean you’re not a student anymore?» The student way of eating never leaves!) and am looking forward to my stuffed tortellini. The fruit & veg selection is good, well priced for those of us who struggle to fork out more than £2 on a punnet of something colourful, though slightly dissapointing on the veggie side in terms of green beans etc.
More dissapointments? It’s a small shop but I managed to get lost. The layout confused me. You go from ready meals to meat to fruit & veg to ‘worldwide’ to cleaning products & pet food to homeware to frozen food & tinned goods. No thanks!
My final complaint of the night, then you can see the back of me for a while! As far as self service checkouts go, I was secretly apologising to the Sainbury’s lady for ever complaining about her as these take the metaphorical biscuit; they are SO sensitive! And, as mentioned, the bag space is tiny. And I mean one bag tiny, causing extra work for whoever’s working on self service checkouts to come and sort out your machine so you can take bags off rather than playing grocery jenga.
I wont rush back unless I fancy a packet of sweets or some fruit. Or to play grocery jenga.

Holy frick. This is brilliant. This is ruddy fantastic. Goodbye Valu, hello shiny new Morrisons. I love this branch so much, I can remember exactly what was going on when I first encountered it. I’d seen all the billboards, so after my swim I trundled up from the Aquatics Centre over to Grafton Street in the fuh-​reezing cold, hair wet and everything. I was listening to Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters on my giant headphones. Great album. At first glance it just looked like a spanking new version of a Morrisons, smaller with self-​service checkouts and friendly staff. Then I noticed something clever.
The reduced section is the first thing you see. So, this is in the Uni District, we’re expecting a student clientele. Bloody genius. I straight away loaded my basket with a reduced rice, some sweet chilli chicken, a lovely pack of bhajis — that night’s tea sorted then. (Sorry students, but you need to get up before 10am to grab these bargains.) I had a little wander, and wasn’t quite prepared for what waited around the corner. An entire station of wonderment. So, there’s a juicer machine, right. One of those giant industrial ones that’s just stupidly brilliant. It’s filled with oranges and surrounded by ice. Within that ice are nestled slurpee-​type cups and small bottles, all containing freshly pressed juice ready for you to grab. Shift over to the right, there’s a proper coffee machine that’ll whip you up anything a Starbucks has on its list of basics. Hovering at around £1.19 for stuff you’d be paying in excess of £2 for? Pour your own!
But the giant soup kettles filled with delicious porridge sent me loopy. Porridge is a quid. A mere quid. And the tubs you place your porridge in? Giant. It’s hot and they’ve popped a bottle of Golden Syrup, a squeezy honey and a pourable jam by the porridge vats… great news for my boyfriend who happens to think Golden Syrup is nectar of the gods, I’d go with maple but d’you know what? I had a whole load of maple at his. The bus stops right over the road. My destination was mere minutes away. And the porridge was still hot when I got home. I *enjoyed* that porridge, and my zingy fresh juice. My spoils had cost me pittance and I felt treated. Also, not only was it really simple to get breakfast items (which include fresh pastries of course) through the self-​service checkouts, but the lady manning them was so nice and instantly helped me when I made stupid mistakes. #failingatlife
Porridge gives way to baked spuds after 11am which you can take away. Also there’s a hot food counter with fresh bacon and cheese pastries. Be still my drooling chops. This might just be my favourite supermarket in Manchester, and for the equivalent of a Metro/Local/7−11 type shop, it’s racing miles ahead of any other.