While I definitely think this is a great idea, the headline is pretty much a lie: "A Long Line for a Shorter Wait at the Supermarket". All this does is average the wait out among all customers. In the long term, you're going to spend the same amount of time in line. In the short term, it could mean you spend either more or less time.

When my boyfriend in I were in New York in October of 2004, we ate several meals at the flagship Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. They have a dazzling array of deli foods, gourmet salads, and hot and cold salad bar selections. They had this checkout queue system in place back then. It looks daunting at first. It's hard to convince yourself to stand in a grocery line with that many people in it - but it really does move fast. And when the person at the head of the line tells you which register to go to, you better move it along quickly. They mean business.

I do not want to have to solve a calculus problem in order to determine what line to stand in. If that is what required, I will happily shop elsewhere.

See also: http://www.mindfully.org/Food/2006/Whole-Foods-Pastoral2006.htm

You don't have to solve a calculus problem. At Whole Foods, you need only do what you're told, even, and especially when you're told subliminally. Do not try to think when you are at Whole Foods. That could get you into trouble.

I see, so it's like Fry's checkout system (or the way many Best Buys and Office Depots are doing it now).

I've been wondering for a while why they don't do that. I always move much faster through those types of lines - even on "Black Friday."

It also stops my biggest pet peeve of all when it comes to grocery stores:

You've been waiting in line for 15 minutes. They finally open a new register. And instead of taking people who have been waiting in line forever, they allow people just walking up to run into the line.

I think it sounds like a great idea! And I agree that the long lines at Trader Joes are a nightmare, especially during the holidays. I've seen so many people at the checkout lanes, with lines extending so far back into the store, that you can't even walk through the front part of the store to shop!

It is also worth noting that the Columbus Circle Whole Foods has fourty (40)checkstands.

Good idea, hope others pick up on it. Hate the stores, shopped there once and the prices and attitudes made sure I'd never come back there again.

delayed by a coupon-counting customer

Hey. I almost always use coupons, especially store coupons from the Tuesday flyers. And, of course, Safeway double-coupons. I have never, however, engaged in "coupon-counting."

And don't like the prices at Whole Foods? Buy a Chinook Book (sold at the register) for twenty bucks, get two Whole Foods coupons for $10 off a $50 purchase and $5 of a $25 purchase...plus all day Tri-Met tickets and, oh, a ton of other coupons including a free pasta dish meal at New Seasons.

Sheesh...coupons sure help our family stretch our food budget.

Most military commissaries have been doing that for decades.

....instead of taking people who have been waiting in line forever, they allow people just walking up to run into the line.

In NY, that's the least of the checkout queue problems. The primary problem, plain and simple, is cutting in, which seems to be a widespread east coast phenomenon.

I would see this as a positive development in that regard - having only only point to cut in instead of forty, would greatly enhance enforceability.