Wildlife rehabbers theorized the animal ducked into the supermarket, then hid among refrigerated items to "hide from people inside the store.”

Customers gasped as officers made several attempts to yank the coyote out of the shelf, finally pulling the animal out by its tail.

A coyote that was pulled out of the refrigerated section of an Aldi in Chicago yesterday will be returned to the wild, officials said. The wild animal was “likely seeking refuge from the hustle and bustle of city life,” slipped into the store via an open door and then hid behind the cheeses and deli meats to avoid the people in the store.

Aldi shoppers got more than they bargained for when a cop yanked a coyote from a fridge by the tail. The strange scene played out in the supermarket chain’s Kedzie Avenue store in Chicago, Illinois, Monday morning and comes amid mating season.

It was not known how a coyote found its way to the Aldi at 800 N. Kedzie Ave., but police officers and the city's animal control department helped out, Chicago police said. The coyote will get a health assessment before it's released.

"A coyote walks into an ALDI"sounds a lot like the start of a cheesy dad joke, but that's exactly what happened in a Chicago, Illinois ALDI store this week. And lucky for us, the mayhem was caught on camera.