First off, I really dislike writing this review for a local, small town place in an area where my DH is from. I support small businesses, especially in small towns, but here we goooooo.
The store is small, quaint, cozy, and right off the highway entering/leaving Alamosa. We generally purchase honey from a local market in Denver, forget the refined weird store stuff, right here in the valley is where we've found the best honey the last few times and decided to stop in a new place instead of buying off the street in La Jara.
Anyhow, we walk in, never greeted, and head towards the small selection of honey that was available. The guy (manager) working that weekend must've rolled over to the wrong side of the bed in the middle of the night and fallen off because geez was he rude! We walked in and he coldly asked us if we were looking for honey - well, DUH, that's why were here I thought. We asked 2 questions while admiring the variety while he kept boxing up his shipment, not once coming over to help, so I stopped - it was no use, our questions seemed to pester him. They do offer a range of honey from seasonal honey, clover honey, huajillo honey, honeycomb etc, and I just wanted plain ol' honey, nothing fancy and some honeycomb. I asked which jar was the plain honey and he said they're the quart jars, I pointed to a quart jar and asked if this was it because it wasn't labeled and without looking over, he said, "well is that a quart?!?" Ok, jerk, I see it's a quart, but you can't walk 2 steps to help? Anyhow, we grab it and we walk the 2 steps to the register and my DH asks if the honey is made here, the guy says rudely, "the bees make the honey", well, we know that jerkwad, but he knew what my DH meant, so DH rephrased the question and asked if it was extracted here or elsewhere. Heck if we know, we were just curious - the bee colonies could be in the back yard or something. So finally, I throw in a remark and say "Ya know, we know it's Sunday, and although it's 10am, we all may still be sleepy, but could you just lighten up a bit ok?!?" I guess he realized he was being a total asshole and lightened up a bit by trying to show us his new salve recipe. By that time I just wanted to pay for my quart of plain honey and hit the road and not look back. Needless to say, I left behind the honeycomb because I no longer wanted to spend more money there and we definitely won't be back.
Next time we'll just buy it from the gal that sells it off the road in La Jara. We always get a smile and a thank you when we leave. Oh, and I think the place needs a name change to Grumpa's Honey. Because that's who you'll get when you walk in the door. read more
