Town of Tonawanda resident and math coach Dana Cave had the opportunity of a lifetime to go on a shopping spree at Tops Market on Monday, with three minutes to fill her cart with as many items as she could and take it all home.
But which items, and how do you get as many as possible in the shortest amount of time?
After all, a successful three-minute shopping spree requires hours of preparation.
Dana Cave ran through the meat section during a “Supermarket Sweep” style shopping spree at Tops in Tonawanda on Monday.
Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
It all started with picking a store to do it in. Cave could have picked any Tops store, but he chose the one in Tonawanda because it was smaller, meaning there would be less area to cover during the three-minute dash and more product packed in.
Next, she strategized which items to go after. At the top of her list was a pricey item: a $70 pop-up tent, followed by more expensive items like a family-sized meat pack and a pack of batteries. The rules of the shopping spree limited Cave to three of any given item, so she couldn’t buy all the steaks and stuff them in her cart in three minutes.
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And then there was the plan: What was the best route from one item to the next? Which ones should go first, which ones should be saved for last? In the days before the shopping frenzy, she made multiple trips to the store to map out a plan. She and her husband, Josh, won $350 in a silent auction at a People Inc. fundraiser.
“I’m very nervous. I’m very nervous,” Cave said before the sprint began.
Dana Cave gestures triumphantly after stuffing three carts with $1,238 worth of groceries.
Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
Cave chose the Tops store at 890 Yonge St. in Tonawanda because he is familiar with the store there and because it has a tighter, more compact layout than other stores in the area.
“I thought I could go faster because if I wanted to go from the front of the store to the back, I had to be back within three minutes or else everything in my cart would be voided if I was in the back of the store,” she said. “It’s not like the old Supermarket Sweep TV show where the timer goes off and you get whatever you had.”
Cave planned to target as many big-ticket items as possible, including a gazebo pop-up tent that he plans to use with his family to watch his son’s Little League baseball games.
“My son is a baseball player, so we need more people in the tent city,” she said.
“I’m very nervous. I’m very nervous,” Cave said before the sprint began.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
She walked the store with her husband on a reconnaissance mission last week, then returned home to plan her attack. She toured the store again on Saturday and walked a few more laps Monday morning before the stampede began, taking notes on her phone.
“I told my family, ‘Everyone is going to think I’m crazy. I need to wear a wig. Everyone will realize I’m crazy,'” she said.
Alcohol and gift cards were prohibited, and there was a limit of three of any item — so three jars of peanut butter, not three jars of each brand of peanut butter.
Her mother, Carol Lovullo, who was pushing the cart, wasn’t allowed to pick up any items. Andy Brocato, a Tops spokesman who organized the event, introduced her to “bodyguards” — security personnel who were there for security because she was shopping during business hours when other customers were shopping. Lovullo insisted she could handle it herself.
Dana Cave is catching her breath after a three-minute “Supermarket Sweep” style shopping spree.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
“Don’t worry, I’m from the West Side,” she said.
Cave changed strategy at the last minute, deciding to start in a different aisle, closer to the center of the store.
Her body appeared to be shaking as she and her mother prepared to take off at the starting line.
“I’m gonna puke,” she joked. “Has anyone ever fainted before?”
Dana Cave stacks rolls of toilet paper onto a cart pushed by her mother, Carol Lavro.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
Behind them were lined up carts at the front of the store where customers could swap their full carts for empty ones.
Brocato announced over a loudspeaker that the shopping spree was about to begin and told shoppers to “step back” and cheer on the contestants.
“All right, let’s do some rock and roll,” said store manager David Christopher.
After the countdown, they set off.
“I’m gonna puke,” Cave joked. “Has anyone ever passed out before?”
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
Cabe took quick aim, grabbing a box of Red Bull and some batteries, quickly tossing them into his cart as Lovro hurried off. She cleared more items from the front of the store, then sprinted down Aisle 3 to the meat department, where she bought bulk packs of chicken and beef.
“Get the bacon!” her friends and family yelled. “Yeah, bacon, bacon, bacon!”
As the day flew by, Cave returned cart after cart loaded with goods, including one piled high with toilet paper and Bounty paper towels.
“She’s done her homework, I’ll give you that,” someone in the crowd said. Cave set his sights on the tampons, then bent down and tossed the pink box into his cart.
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Cave collected a large bag full of paper plates and red Solo cups (“She has a swimming pool in the ground and often entertains people,” her mother later said).
“Wow, she’s getting a lot!” exclaimed one customer.
Spectators tried to keep up, moving from aisle to aisle for the best views.
“Keep going! More, more, more!” urged family friend Dolores Joseph.
Long story short, Cave and Lovro were separated in the drug store.
“Where are they?” Lovro cried.
The two got separated again toward the end of their bar crawl. Cave couldn’t find his mother, so he grabbed a giant gazebo tent he had his eye on and sprinted back to the register. As she walked, Brocato called over the intercom to tell her there were 15 seconds left and began counting down.
“I knew we were running out of time so I just started carrying it as fast as I could at that point,” Cave said.
Cave and Lovro made it back in time to the register and sat down on the ground, out of breath, while Brocato handed them each a bottle of water from the cooler next to the register.
“It was so intense my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest,” Lovro said.
A customer passing by asked, “Is there anything left?”
“Do you have oxygen?” Lovro asked, walking to the pharmacy and having his blood pressure taken by an automated machine.
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Cave missed the soap section where he hoped to buy laundry detergent, and he regrets not taking his mother with him as he wandered the store, which might have helped them stay together. But he was happy with his purchase.
“It was pretty good,” she said. “It went a lot faster than I thought it would.”
While Brocato and a cashier checked out three carts full of groceries and packed them into Tops’ reusable red bags, the players sipped water and tried to recover from the nerve-wracking three-minute sprint.
Beep! A jug of olive oil for $45. Beep! A package of steaks for $45. Beep, beep, beep! Three boxes of Tim Hortons coffee for another $45 each.
“$650 and counting!” Brocato announced to the crowd gathered around the register as he bagged up bottles of vegetable oil and boxes of garbage bags.
Cave realized his breakeven was above zero and exhaled, even though the cash register was still ringing.
In the end, the couple made $1,238 on their shopping spree — $1,102 after subtracting the savings from the bonus card.
Brocato gave her a copy of the receipt.
“Here, you can frame it,” he said.
As Cave, Lovlo and their friends and family pushed the cart out to the truck and began loading their belongings, Christopher began to go back to business as usual.
“It was really nerve-wracking. It all happened so quickly and I was kind of nervous about how it was going to go,” the store manager said, “But she had a really good plan and it was fun to watch her execute it.”
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