Specifically at grocery stores.
This weekend I was grocery shopping, and it occurred to me whilst attempting to find the one or two whole bean offerings amid the sea of pre-ground coffee and k-cups that I haven’t seen coffee grinders in a grocery store in years. It feels like, growing up through the 90s and early aughts, most stores would have at least a few options to grind fresh, or at least the Bakers near my home did. However, at some point, they were seemingly removed everywhere.
Of course, my intuition tells me that it benefits stores to not have such specialized machinery in place so as to allow maximum flexibility with store layout, but I’m curious if anyone has an inside scoop.
The only place I ever saw it was at Costco or a little specialty health food store mom used to go to when I was little. I haven’t been to the latter in decades, and Costco got rid of theirs a couple years ago. I think Costco’s reasoning was mostly about them being underutilized compared to the cost. My parents were never coffee drinkers, though, and I started trying when I was dating my wife but also started getting ulcers soon after, so coffee hasn’t been something I’ve really paid attention to.