dominion301
post-sept2005 062b
The lower of the two old car order/parcel pickup/commande à l'auto conveyor belts at ex-A&P store #386. This is the point at which the 50m long straightaway section of belt started. It switched from electric powered rollers on a curved section, that then brought the bins from another straightaway belt that transported them up from the rollers at the right-side cash registers. One common trait amongst many original Dominion stores from the 1970s & early 80s (this store opened in 1981), was that the rollers in front of the cashiers were powered, meaning the cashiers didn't have to give the bins a push on manual rollers to get them started down the conveyor. The Dominion at St-Laurent in Ottawa was also like this, while the Dominion at Merivale (today a Farm Boy) was only rollers, where they were powered in the store then as bins entered the car order room there were unpowered rollers where gravity & momentum took over.
The store closed in November 2005, but the car order operation was shut down 10 years prior to the store's closing or in 1995...the grocery chains were sadly shuttering them en-masse in the mid-1990s. I wonder if more of them would still be in use today were Steinberg's still around.
Back in the heyday of stores in Ontario & Quebec having a car order service, several of them had two conveyors - with one to send out customers' orders and the other to return empty bins back to the cash registers. This store was rather unique in that both belts were used to transport customers' orders out to the parcel pickup room, which was located in west corner of the store by the truck receiving doors. The reason for this is that the mall entrance was midway down the length of the store's entrance and there were 6 cash registers on either side, each with their own car order conveyor. Therefore, when the cashiers need more empty bins, the direction of 1 of the 2 belts would be reversed to return empties. After the store closed, the conveyors were removed and the old parcel pickup drive-thru doors are all that remains of the car order operation. Today the store is Food Basics store #870.
post-sept2005 062b
The lower of the two old car order/parcel pickup/commande à l'auto conveyor belts at ex-A&P store #386. This is the point at which the 50m long straightaway section of belt started. It switched from electric powered rollers on a curved section, that then brought the bins from another straightaway belt that transported them up from the rollers at the right-side cash registers. One common trait amongst many original Dominion stores from the 1970s & early 80s (this store opened in 1981), was that the rollers in front of the cashiers were powered, meaning the cashiers didn't have to give the bins a push on manual rollers to get them started down the conveyor. The Dominion at St-Laurent in Ottawa was also like this, while the Dominion at Merivale (today a Farm Boy) was only rollers, where they were powered in the store then as bins entered the car order room there were unpowered rollers where gravity & momentum took over.
The store closed in November 2005, but the car order operation was shut down 10 years prior to the store's closing or in 1995...the grocery chains were sadly shuttering them en-masse in the mid-1990s. I wonder if more of them would still be in use today were Steinberg's still around.
Back in the heyday of stores in Ontario & Quebec having a car order service, several of them had two conveyors - with one to send out customers' orders and the other to return empty bins back to the cash registers. This store was rather unique in that both belts were used to transport customers' orders out to the parcel pickup room, which was located in west corner of the store by the truck receiving doors. The reason for this is that the mall entrance was midway down the length of the store's entrance and there were 6 cash registers on either side, each with their own car order conveyor. Therefore, when the cashiers need more empty bins, the direction of 1 of the 2 belts would be reversed to return empties. After the store closed, the conveyors were removed and the old parcel pickup drive-thru doors are all that remains of the car order operation. Today the store is Food Basics store #870.