Going in store is usually a good experience. It's clean and the staff is friendly. For the size of the municipality that it is in, I think it offers a lot of options. I'm a vegetarian and can easily find plant based options such as tempeh, tofu, Morningstar Farms's products, Beyond Burger, etc. I've been living in St Joe for about 5 years and this has not always been the case, so they've expanded their selection and I appreciate that. I also think their quality of produce is solid as well. I definitely prefer it over Walmart's. I also like Hyvee's bulk item section where you can get wheat berries and nuts and quinoa and coconut along with so much more for a really good price. Too bad it's closed down because of COVID-19. And their liquor section is pretty stout with all the beer, liquor and wine they have!
I've read some of the poor reviews this store has gotten that pull their Yelp star rating down and they aren't really reviews of the entire store. They're fair, but if you aren't calling them to see what they have in stock or using their floral services, this place will do you well as a regular grocery store.
I did recently have a poor experience with their online shopping service for pick-up and that is why I'm not giving it 5 stars.
My recommending Hyvee online grocery shopping service would depend on the person's expectations for the service. If you aren't super picky about what you want and are ok with inspecting the order at the time of pick-up, then this will do just fine for you. My first time experience using this service is detailed below.
Unfortunately, I did not receive my entire order when I first stopped by for pick-up, so I had to go back to Hyvee after putting everything away at home and noticing the missing items. Apparently part of my order was mislabeled and for some reason, they couldn't figure out who's it was, so it seems like they were just going to wait until someone complained. Not sure what they see on their end, but it should be easier for them to solve those problems and either resolve it before the customer picks it up or notify the customer of the mistake afterwards, even if they've already picked up their order. It would suck to make that call, but being proactive like that would've gone a long way, IMO. I was offered cookies extra at no charge for the trouble, which was nice, but there is room for improvement when those situations arise. Btw, I opted for a bunch of bananas instead of the cookies.
And I'm pretty particular when it comes to items I select, so I was sure to mark the box "no substitutions" when I know something else will not be acceptable. I ordered Tostitos Cantina Thin & Crispy style chips online but noticed that I got Tostitos Cantina Traditional chips, which are pretty much the thickest style of tortilla chip you can get, so it was the opposite of what I ordered. I don't remember if I allowed substitutions for that but I don't think I did, and I'm guessing that the shopper saw "Tostitos Cantina" on my order and didn't know that there were more choices than what they first saw on the shelf. Additionally, this wasn't a rapid order so the shopper should've had plenty of time to carefully select my items off the shelves. Unfortunately, I didn't notice this issue until after I went back the second time, so I'm stuck with chips I won't eat.
With all that being said, I will probably do online grocery shopping in the future. It's free and it was very convenient. But it won't be so convenient in the future for me because I will do better at inspecting my groceries before I leave the store to make sure all of this is sorted out before I leave the store. It just sucks that my first experience with this went so poorly. read more