this is absolutely a thing people do on a pretty regular basis! less so in New York than in like, Wisconsin, but in particular it's highly attractive if you're doing anything on scale.
People's errands will take them nearby for all sorts of other reasons. So maybe the distance is prohibitive for a grocery trip by itself, but it will immediately become part of the trip if anything else brings me over there.
also this might be my suburbanness showing itself but together my commute and my wife's commute make it practical to shop at 6 different supermarkets. You bet that if one of them is offering a 30% discount on something important, one of us will show up there and buy $200 of it!
