Brits nip to the shop to buy milk. What do Americans buy?

[Fordian]

As in, we nip down the local Tesco metro to buy milk, bread, wine or beer.

What would an American nip down to buy?

And how far away is if?

Mine's a 2 minute drive.

When I lived in a city in the US, I popped to the shop to buy bread and milk, same as here. The nearest shop was about 30 seconds away, but full of drugged up drunk people so I had to walk about two minutes further to get to a Walgreens. I also walked a couple of blocks to get my Nando's fix, and a few blocks more to get my Pret sandwich.

They buy what they need like we do here in UK.

I’m in London and I went or popped or nipped ( whatever you want to call it) to the local shop ( Tesco ) for a bag of ice and a pack of 4 frozen jacket potatoes and a bag of frozen Scampi.

I live in rural France. After midday on a Sunday nothing is open until Monday am so if you’ve run out you do without.
When I do nip to the store it’s usually for chocolate, eggs (for baking) and peanuts.

I live in the US, in a nice urban area but not a particularly uber rich one. I can walk 2-5 minutes from my house to a local walgreens (with an ok grocery aisle), an independent coffee shop, a chain coffee shop, a spa (Boston for a general grocery store) an independent shop, a whole foods (in fairness that would be more like 7 minutes walk), a couple of delis, and a fair few chinese/mexican/italian/high end italian restaurants - also a great IT fix everything place, a laundry, a gym and of course lots of churches. I often don't have a car during the day and manage to buy stuff. Like everyone else we buy milk, bread, juice, newspapers in the local shops.

I don't know where I'd go to find a gun store tbh (but I do live in Massachusetts). There are 2 tattoo parlors recently opened up near me. Apparently there is a one-year wait for an appointment with one of them.

The blue laws in MA were awful for a while - and it is still a strange place to buy alcohol. Not like Florida (but in fairness you'd need a lot of easily available alcohol to make Florida bearable). you couldn't buy alcohol on a sunday. Dh worked in the ER and said poor homeless guys would come in on sundays in a desperate way because they couldn't get alcohol.

I love this, too. Some of my favorite and most vivid travel memories are from just looking around in stores and buying mundane things in packaging unlike what we have at home.

So interesting!

I live in greater NYC area. I run to the bodega for milk. It's two blocks away.

I am in a Southern US City. If I need to pop out at an obscure time I'll go to Walgreens as it's open 24 hrs. I can get basic groceries like bread, milk, cheese, eggs, frozen meals. It's a 3 min drive.

If I need fruit n veg or a larger shop, then I have 2 large grocery stores all within a 10 minute drive. One of them used to be open 24 hours but they didn't resume those hours after covid restrictions were lifted.

I rarely go into the grocery store these days. I do the curbside pick up, the service was just so good the last couple of years that I don't see why I need to go back to in store shopping each time.

I have Target and Trader Joes about 10 minutes away. I shop in store for those.

I also have a gas station with small store 5 minutes walk away which I sometimes go to for a soda. Too hot to contemplate that during the daytime right now, though.

Ummm eggs? Whatever I forgot to buy at the big shop I did at the weekend? I don’t need to buy milk multiple times a week because it lasts a week and I buy enough? Actually the milkman delivers it just like in jolly ole England… the nearest shop is 10 minute walk, 2 min bike ride, proper grocery store, 15 min walk, 5 minute drive/bike ride…

I am an American and I live in Houston.
I literally just "went to the H‑E‑B" about an hour ago for a few things.

H‑E‑B is a Texas-based grocery chain that consistently ranks as one of the best grocery stores in the state.

It is only a mile away from me or a 20 minute walk but since it's Texas and summer, it's boiling outside. It's currently 11:00pm and it's still 85F (29.4C) with a "feels like temperature" of 95F (35C). You read that right, it's almost midnight!! The high today was 105F (40.5C) but the "feels like temperature" was 114 (46C). You bet that I am driving to H‑E‑B!!

I bought eggs, milk, Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeño, corn tortillas, flour tortillas, bagels, cream cheese and a watermelon that weighs 18lbs, seriously. It's massive and only cost $3.98 or £3.32.

The liquor laws in the US are fun. Every state can be complete different than the next.

They even vary from town to town.

At the time when Al Capone was king of a neighbouring suburb, mine was dry and remained so for decades, partly in an attempt to keep the mob from conducting its business here (though nothing could stop leading mobsters living here). There are very tight laws on liquor licenses in my suburb even still.

Same stuff
And the nearest in NYC was 2 minutes (deli/drugstore for basics like milk, bread) or a 15 minute walk to the big grocery store.
Nearest in California was 3 minute walk to the store.

I love threads like this, it's fascinating.

So in America it looks like store is used more whereas I would say shop.
Do you use the word shop at all? Or is it just visiting Brits?
If I heard someone using the word store here, I'd know what they meant but they would almost certainly be American (and probably from the local base).

Personally, I pop, run or nip to the shops or garage. There's a garage in the village which is a 10 minute walk, but only used in an emergency as it's very expensive.

Most often it's a run to Home Bargains or Farm Foods for snacks, ice creams or lollies at the moment (and invariably I spend much more than I want to!).
Or Tesco for teen DDs cookery lesson ingredients when she's given me the list the day before. Otherwise Tesco deliver the bulk of it once a week.

Local town is about 4 miles away.

Yes! It's one of my favourite things to do on holiday. DH thinks I'm insane but I find it fascinating. Walmart was a highlight, just such a weird variety of things all under one roof😅

Agree! It's such an interesting look into how people live day to day in other countries.

Even now one of the things I miss most from home is the grocery store...it's just so calming and familiar and totally different to being over here!

Me too, when the DC were children to teens we would go to Florida every year for about 6 years. Walmart was the highlight. Those were the days when you got about $1.86 to the pound so it was cheap.

I loved looking at the junk food and the cereals as they were so different to ours, and the wine that came in gallon bottles. I would stock up on Pecan pie as it’s very rare here.I also loved all the extra flavours of ice cream we didn’t have.

also the size of everything, huge.

after a fascinated look at the gun cabinets we would finish in clothing where the jeans, funky pyjamas, T-shirts and shorts were so cheap and brilliant quality. DS still has a pair of Mountain Dew PJs that are full of holes but he won’t part with. He’s 28.

supermarkets abroad are the best, but the Florida ones were for me were the greatest.

I remember taking my British DH to Walmart in Northern Ontario to pick up some snacks for the cottage and he was absolutely fascinated by the gun aisle. He couldn't believe there were actual guns in the store.

Since it was Canada, you couldn't just buy them - you needed a hunting licence and a permit (not nearly as easy to get as in the States), but it seems so easily accessible when it's just behind the glass.

My local shop ,two minute walk sell milk ,also I live about a mile from the town centre and I'm lucky enough to be able to pick and choose which supermarkets I use.

In Spain it's always for bread and it's usually a two minute walk.

Sorry forgot the distance! In Germany we've never lived closer than a ten Minute walk to a shop, current and first house here were about a 15 mins walk away. It's annoying when you're used to British corner shops.

I think the issue is there isn't the culture for it. People do a smaller big shop 2-3 times per week as generally have a SAHP or people without kids just go to the supermarket on their way home, so there's no need for any top up shopping. We actually have a shop unit in our village that gets occupied briefly and then the owners can't make it work for long because they don't get enough customers. When they opened a small supermarket 20 mins walk away that killed it completely the last time.

Do you use the word shop at all?

Yes, but to a certain extent, it may be regional, so what I'm saying is true mainly for the South. Smaller stores might be called a shop, like a specialty clothing shop. We have a kosher butcher in my town; it's a "butcher shop." Places that do body work on cars are "body shops." If your car is being worked on, you might say "it's in the shop."

And in the Southern US where I grew up, hair salons used to be called the "beauty shop." That usage has almost died out, though.

Americans don't use the other noun sense of "shop" that British people do as in "doing a shop" or the "weekly shop." We just say "going grocery shopping" or doing my weekly grocery shopping."

I’m curious about the corn people buy in America. What form is it in? And what do you do with it?

When it's in season, we buy fresh corn and have corn on the cob. But there is also canned corn (creamed or just the kernels) and frozen corn. My favorite corn is a Southern dish where you scrape fresh corn off the cob and saute it in bacon fat until it gets creamy. It's often called creamed corn, but there is no milk or cream in it, just corn and bacon fat.

I have a theory that the best corn comes from places where the growing season is short. We go to western New York State every summer for several weeks (missed the last two years) and the corn there in August is the best I have ever tasted. You can buy it freshly picked from farmers and get it straight into the corn pot. Low boil for no more than 5 minutes, salt and butter and it's pure heaven on a plate.