Simon Hunter
IN ANOTHER depressing sign that the summer is coming to a close, Spain’s popular Mercadona chain of supermarkets will from today be changing its opening times.
As its summer campaign comes to an end, the closing time of the Spanish retail establishment will no longer be 10pm, but will return to 9.30pm as it was ahead of the vacation period. The supermarket’s opening time remains at 9am.
Unlike competitors such as Carrefour, Mercadona does not usually open its stores on Sundays or public holidays.
However, this summer saw the Valencia-based business also alter these opening times in popular vacation areas, particularly those by the coast.
As such, some branches of Mercadona were open from 9am to 3pm during the period June 26 to August 27 both on Sundays, and on days such as the August 15 Assumption of Mary national holiday.
A total of 330 stores of a total of 1,500 were affected by this change, according to a report in online daily El Español, and they also had to draft in extra staff to cope with the higher-than-usual number of customers.
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