You’ve got to make a deposit on the use of a shopping cart?
I take it you live in a high-crime area.
It’s an Aldi thing, regardless of the area.
The carts are daisy chained together, so you need to put a quarter in the cart’s handle mechanism to disconnect it from the rest of the carts.
Regular Aldi shoppers have their Aldi quarter at the ready to either get their cart from the stack, or swap with another person on their way out.
I think Aldi does that for all their stores.
We live in a reputable area and shop at Aldi’s. We must put a quarter in to use and cart and then we get it back upon returning it.
As a senior with arthritis, it really does make a problem as we need to walk all the way back to the store rather than having a cart rack close by.
You also bag your own groceries at Aldi’s.
Aldi’s carts are linked/strung together with a foot long chain on each cart. There’s a key at the end of the chain. The key slides into and locks in a slot on the front side of the cart handle. When you get a cart, there’s a slot on the back of the handle. You insert a quarter into the back slot...releasing the chain key of the next cart in line. Your cart is now free. When you’re finished shopping, you push the cart into the line of carts (as normal), grab the chain on the next cart in front of you, slide the key into the front slot of your cart...and your quarter pops out. Sometimes, people just push their cart into the general cart area and the next person gets a “free” cart...not to mention a quarter when they properly park their cart. Really a good system.
Not really a high crime area...although I did watch the city cops take down a car thief in our back yard one time. That was fun. We were already aware of this yahoo before the cops even arrived...even pointed the cops in the right direction. And yes, I was in “protective mode”.
Its an Aldi thing.