Ryan & Claudia Tucker have done an overall great job with the store. There's a great selection given the small square-footage, prices are amazing, and it's a pleasant place to shop and score deals that nearby Stater Bros and Jensens won't offer. These positive attributes could be credited to Grocery Outlet as a corporation, but I'm willing to give these owners credit, especially for getting involved in the community when they first came in.
I only put 3 stars though. That's because I find it horribly annoying and cloying when the clerks ring the bells and scream in your face when customers save over a certain threshold. I hate the American cultural practice of "corporate cheer", exemplified by Walmart's employee rallies or Target's "HELLO WELCOME!!" Ryan and Claudia chose to partake in and mandate this. Why??? Screaming in my face and drawing attention to me makes me fill up with anxiety and want to GTFO. As an introvert who is neurotypical (I'll get into that), this drives me up the wall.
If you want to believe I'm overly negative, here's a more legitimate issue with all of this: many people physically sensitive to noise (e.g. those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), PTSD, head injuries, etc.) don't like this either, and have to put up with this nauseating show. On the local Facebook group, I posted about these sentiments and a person who's suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) says they avoid Grocery Outlet because of this. I get the huge feeling that this store would not lose ANY customers by cutting out the enforcement of that screaming and ringing policy.
I want to thank the clerk at the store yesterday who, when I inquired about this, told me how they're mandated to do this at this particular store (but not at every store), and empathized with my frustrations. He even held off that stupid bell-ringing show when I saved enough to unleash it. Moreover, I hate this policy of forced cheer being imposed on clerks, who are all human beings just trying to go about their work day, but that's another conversation. If you are a clerk or a customer who likes all of this, I invite you to tell me why.
At the end of the day, that ritual they do ruins a lot of the shopping experience for me, and it was an active choice of Ryan and Claudia to implement it, since not all Grocery Outlet branches have this. I hope there are others who relate. read more