I was so unimpressed with my experience that as soon as I got out of my car I put down my bags and created a Yelp account just to lament on how... not good... this place is.
There's a parking lot behind the store. There are five spaces. One is handicapped, so that's cool. But it looks more like a junk collector's crammed backyard than that of a parking lot. In fact, I didn't even realize it was there and made the mistake of parking out front where there is metered parking. Only some of the meters work, so I was already off to a bad start.
The front entrance is closed and flanked with signs that tell you to enter through the back. The signs are so weathered that they're easily overlooked until you're actually standing at the front door. They probably have not been touched up or replaced in 20 years. Then again, that could be said for most of the building. If you picture "1990's housewife," that's the aesthetic this establishment has.
And of course, there's no real way to walk from the front of the building to the rear. One side is walled off by a fast food drive through next door and the other side is a field with stretches of pavement that run along the building and are less than a foot wide. It's easier to walk in the grass.
Upon entering the building, it's jarring to see a layout that resembles a modern JoAnn Fabrics store that was poorly feng shui'd into a space that's not quite big enough. I thought the building looked too small from the outside to be a JoAnn Fabrics. I was right. And the weirdest thing is that for as packed as it was, the store felt empty. The selection I expect from other locations wasn't there. Thinking about it now, I wonder if this location gets all the unsold overstock from other stores. There was an unnecessary amount of clearance holiday items but the aisles with regular merchandise were poorly stocked.
I got disoriented a couple times in there because the organization and layout aren't well thought out and I thought I was in one spot when it turned out I was on the other side of the store. For a place already lacking in space, they sure like to put the same item in multiple spots.
Other items felt like they had been lost to time. There were clearance items with different types of price stickers, like someone had found a roll of an older style in the back they decided to use when pricing them. I'm positive that some things in that store are destined to only collect dust - of which there is a lot.
I'm used to long lines at JoAnn Fabrics when I'm checking out but that's usually because there are a lot of people in line, not because there's only one person working the front registers. And it was not the store's fault that one woman ahead of me decided to pay for her purchase with five dollars in pennies, but that certainly did not make my experience any better.
There is a difference between customers approaching the register and asking the cashier to call for another employee to help them and asking, "Is anyone else working or are you alone?" To be fair, there was one other person I know of who was working at the time. I saw her walking in and out of the backroom.
Once I finally was able to approach the register so I could check out, I felt too rushed to voice my concern about how a couple of the items rang up. I was also grossed out because the cashier wiped her nose across the back of her hand and I'd had enough and wanted to leave.
I don't understand how this store operates and I would be shocked if there's a long term future for this location. I'm trying to think of any positive aspects to my visit and all I can come up with is that I'm glad I didn't get a parking ticket while I was standing in line behind a customer who brought in a bag of pennies just so she could "get rid of them." read more