This story was originally published on October 28, 2016.
As part of her official duties of Looking At Things, Queen Elizabeth visited a grocery story in Poundbury, a town in southwest England, on Thursday. While a British source inside Refinery29 verified that the grocery store in question, Waitrose, is upscale, that doesn't mean she looks any less out of place doing something as normal as grocery shopping.
In one of her signature matching coat-and-hat ensembles, the reigning monarch of the British Isles regarded a dairy case. While we can only guess what was going through her head as she considered the sheer volume of yogurts and aged cheeses available for purchase, we imagine anyone, monarch or not, is equally overwhelmed at the variety of sliced cheeses you can buy these days. (And don't even get us started on Greek yogurt.)
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Her tour of the grocery store included a survey of the prepared food section, where the Defender of the Faith assessed the kinds of things people who don't have household staff eat when they are just too tired to think about cooking dinner.
The Queen of the Commonwealth was also given free hampers of whiskey, beer, and wine by the grocery store staff, as well as treats for her dogs. While she did not voice her thoughts on modern grocery stores known, we shudder to think what she would make of the indignities of self checkout, especially because sometimes the barcode is in a weird place and its really hard to get it to scan.
The grocery store tour was part of a larger royal visit to Poundbury for the dedication of Queen Mother Square. The Royal Family also stopped by a local pub, though the Express reports that the Queen did not have her favorite "lunchtime tipple," a gin and Dubonnet, a wine–based aperitif.