Short Version:
Decent variety, fantastic bakery, BUT, awful business model, dangerous parking lot, shady business ethics, they have no idea what they are doing this past 2 years on the employment side. Food overpriced, not justifiable. They act more like a cult and less like a business. Do not apply here, unless you know someone, and expect to hate your job.
Go to the Stater Bros in Lake Arrowhead or really anywhere else for your food. Do not waste your time here.
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The positives: It is a small business that was built over 50 years ago and is still there today. That is some level of respectable success. The bakery food is great, and they do have a wide variety of foods for selection, but then again, what grocery store doesn't. Their chicken & ribs that is made to-go is the best aspect of their store. It's also nice not being berated with any kind of advertisement BS you might get get elsewhere.
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The negatives: Their food is overpriced. Some products are mislabeled. Some products are absurdly over-priced. Beef jerky is a great example. $8 dollars for something that has less than 1/2 of a pound of food in it. A sense of general corner-cutting sinisterism seems to be present upon my every visit. Seriously, if you decided to pay a little attention, you'll notice quickly something isn't right.
Also, they pay people to give fake reviews on yelp, I can confirm, and they are a cult-like business. If they do not know you they will practically look at you as the enemy, or the label "outsider" will be on your head for every employee, even if you've lived here for 10 years. Pretty hilarious, considering a bunch of their employees are just 35+ year olds with no real education/skills earned their entire lives. They will not help you with anything as they seem either too busy or fed up with their jobs apparently because they are constantly shifting around unhinged. It's like nobody has official positions. They are just assigned to wherever. It seems they take no pride in their work, even in the sense of serving community, outside of simply taking on the responsibility they "need" to as required by law. The crime they have in their parking lots on a weekly basis is horrid.
They are constantly firing people and having people quit, because the pay is minimum wage, which is like saying "i'd pay you less if I could get away with it" despite them having very unusual schedules and moving people around constantly, and expect people to bust their ass for peanuts. It's not a "minimum wage now, but a raise months later if you do well." No. They have people who have not gotten any sort of raise in over years. It is astonishing their bakery department is so good, because they treat them the worst by far. This generally means you shouldn't bother really talking to any employee there for any reason.
In terms of employment, they care more about who you know and basically anything that doesn't involve your experience comes first. They seem to be getting paid in some fashion to hire high school students. So even if you've worked in another grocery store for 4 years prior, but you don't any have close ties to anyone working at Goodwins, they will do anything to hire someone else they know, no matter how qualified or professional you are. They will also pretend the requirements for any job there are higher than usual for you if you are an outsider, all the while hiring high school kids who have never worked a day in their life.
1. If a woman with 4 years of experience comes in, but you are worried because 1 of her tasks is something she hasn't done before, maybe check yourself and remember you are a grocery store, and it is retail standard.
- In contrast to what I said previously, to be fair, anyone with an IQ of 100 or higher could do any job they offer. The problem is many people/kids you hire don't want to work anyway. But please do not pretend you do any tasks that require alot of brainpower/labor. No, standing on your feet all day is not hard labor, it's just tenuous/unnecessary over-exertion at times. Even your senior positions are small compared to say, a corporate leader in food venue/networking/music industry. (I was a music software engineer for 12 years. Spare me your protest.)
They do not even know what they hire people for. 4 people I know have applied here over the past 2 years, and all said they were not even told what position they would be working. They've been called in for interviews where there wasn't a justification for hiring anyone them.. If you don't even know what is needed, you shouldn't be interviewing. Time is money. Yet if you go into their store, you can see they are grossly understaffed. It's as though they are looking for new members of a cult, not hiring employees.
I think there is some shady business going on behind the scenes.
AVOID Goodwins. read more