I’ve helped some friends shop there, since I drive a pickup.

Just wait for them at the caffeteria?

When the local IKEA was opened, they made you go all the way through expo labyrinth just to get to cafeteria and there was even a security guard making sure nobody takes the obviously planned in shortcut from the beginning of expo hall to cafeteria.

They did open up the shortcut after a few months though.

Did you try to go directly to the cafeteria and were refused? I'd bet the security guard was there to prevent people walking backwards through the store and stealing, though I assume they purposefully placed him in an area to make people think they couldn't walk directly to the cafeteria.

Yes, he explained that the passage there is only open during emergencies or something like that.

The answer to this is always "well, this is an emergency for me, feel free to call the police if you mind me going to the cafeteria".

I wonder what it feels like to be the human equivalent of a door.

Good question. Sometimes you need something from IKEA. But same as above, I hate the Ikea experience, which is designed to exhaust the customer.

I once broke my iPad at Ikea out of tiredness (put it on an instable shelf while arguing with my partner).

It’s designed to make you tired, to make you argue with your partner, to make your kids run around and want things, and to make you slow down when you need to finish quickly. Ikea is designed to give you, in fine, a bad experience.