Exterior
Plenty of parking. When you turn in from Powder…read moreSprings Rd, there is a very blind, somewhat steep curve. Be careful. A few months ago, I turned left, into the lot and stray cat walked in front of my car. Another motorist turned in right behind me (speeding, to beat the other cars traveling straight). Motorist was not expecting my sudden stop and rear-ended me - then fled the scene. No stars deducted for this. Just letting folks know to exercise caution. I've turned in before and had to stop short because a homeless person was unexpectedly standing right there.
Interior
Always clean and bright, but I dislike how difficult it is to find stuff in the store. For instance, they often have this frozen salmon that I enjoy - but, for some reason, they don't put it with the rest of the fresh or frozen salmon - it's at the back of the store, near the ice cream and frozen vegetables. And some of the items I'm looking for are in the 'international section,' but some of the 'international items' are inexplicably placed on the regular spice aisle. And they have a section dedicated to the weekly specials, but only about 25% of the weekly specials are actually in this section. 1 star. This leads me to my second problem with the store.
Customer Service
If you ask an associate for help - 99% of the time, they are gonna tell you that they a) point-blank don't know where it is or b) it's out of stock. It's extremely maddening when b) happens and later, you stumble across the item. This actually happened to me with the heavy-set, African American lady with the hyper-pigmentation. I later found out that she is an assistant manager. She's always frowning and scowling. And she's always hiding out in the back texting. (I've seen her multiple times when walking past the prepared foods towards dairy because there's no door and you can straight into this area designated for employees only.
Some of the cashiers are incredibly rude and if you complain, you're told that they are just shy or uncomfortable talking to strangers. I'm shy too, but I had to learn, at a very young age, to get past it for work and fake it. Rob, the manager, is great! And there are 3 cashiers / associates that are actually friendly and helpful, but the rest of them act like they hate life and hate everyone that comes in the store.
So ... 0 stars for the rude folks and 5 stars for Rob and the nice folks, averaging out to 2.5 stars.
The website states that they deliberately don't have a way to call the local stores because it allows them to have smaller staff which equals lower prices. One of the employees told me that there's never more than 3 people working at one time. I don't know if that's accurate, but if so that would explain why no matter what time of day I go, it seems like there's always only one register open, self-checkout is closed, and there's a line of 6 or 7 people. It can be frustrating when some people have 1 or 2 items, but others have overflowing shopping carts. A few time, I've put my items away and left. No stars deducted for this because its not the store's fault, but corporate needs to re-assess this 3 employees per shift thing.
Price / Value
I get my Roma tomatoes and frozen salmon here, weekly. I keep an eye out and stock up when they have boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.99. They have really good produce. I also stock up on cabbage when they have it for $0.69 or $0.79 a pound. I recently discovered their whole wheat naan is delicious. And they have a pretty good cabernet sauvignon for $4 that's great for cooking and drinking. Lol. I always look at the weekly ad because it gives me the opportunity to try new things at a low price. 5 stars.
Overall
Overall, I like this store. I wish they would get a better staff. They don't even have to be friendly, just don't be UNFRIENDLY, and don't be lazy (as in familiarize yourself with inventory / products and their locations). While they might no longer warm the cockles of my heart (lol at my phone auto-correcting to cuckold in my original review), but I do visit them 1 - 2 times per week - so they have to be doing something right.