Fry's on Thanksgiving: Open or Closed?

Nate Ryder: Your Thanksgiving Grocery Store Survival Guide (Or, How to Avoid Disaster)

So, Thanksgiving's looming. You're knee-deep in cranberry sauce and existential dread, and suddenly, BAM! You realize you're missing a key ingredient. Happens to the best of us, right? But before you start panicking like a turkey on pardon day, let's get real about which stores are actually playing ball on Thanksgiving 2025.

The Thanksgiving Grocery Gauntlet

Okay, first things first: some stores are straight-up CLOSED. Aldi, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Costco? Forget about it. They're giving their employees a day off, which is... nice, I guess. But doesn't help you when your gravy's looking sad. For a comprehensive list of stores that will be open, check out this List of Grocery Stores Open on Thanksgiving Day 2025.

Now, for the brave souls who are open. We've got Dollar General hanging in there, supposedly from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. But here's the catch—and there's always a catch—hours vary. So, call ahead. Seriously, pick up the phone. It's 2025, but we're still making phone calls to verify basic info. What is this, the Stone Age?

Food Lion's another option, with most stores open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Again, the "call ahead" disclaimer applies. It's like these companies want us to wander aimlessly through the frozen foods section, desperately searching for chicken broth.

And then there's Kroger. Oh, Kroger. Open on Thanksgiving, but closing early. Exact hours? You guessed it: "vary by location." This includes the whole Kroger family: Baker’s, City Market, Dillons, blah blah blah... a whole alphabet soup of grocery chains. Look, I ain't listing them all. Just call your local store, okay?

Meijer is trying to be helpful, staying open from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. I guess that's... decent. Whole Foods? Modified hours, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Unless you're in Massachusetts, Maine, or Rhode Island, in which case, tough luck. Wegmans is sticking around until 4 p.m., but, surprise, surprise, verify those hours. Are you sensing a theme here?

The Cookie Crumbles: A Privacy Nightmare

Wait, what's this? Buried in the fine print about Thanksgiving store hours is a whole section on COOKIES? NBCUniversal's Cookie Notice, to be exact. Apparently, they're tracking everything we do online, from our browsing habits to our social media activity. They say it's to "improve the content and user experience," but let's be real: it's about selling us more crap we don't need.

They've got "Strictly Necessary Cookies," "Personalization Cookies," "Ad Selection and Delivery Cookies"... it's like a dystopian menu of surveillance options. You can try to opt out, of course. But good luck navigating that maze of settings and privacy policies. It's designed to be confusing, offcourse. They want you to just give up and let them track you.

And the worst part? Even if you do manage to disable some cookies, they're still collecting information for "research" and "internal operations." So, you're never truly free. You're just a data point in their endless quest for profit.

Honestly, it makes you wonder if Thanksgiving is even worth it. All this stress, all this consumerism, all this data tracking... maybe we should just order pizza and watch Netflix. Then again, Netflix is probably tracking us too...

So, What's the Real Story?

Look, at the end of the day, it's all about convenience vs. privacy. You want that last-minute ingredient? You're gonna have to brave the crowds, the weird hours, and the constant surveillance. Is it worth it? That's up to you. Me? I'm stocking up now and unplugging my devices on Thursday. I'm going full Luddite for a day. Let them track that.