I have been shopping at Ralph's for a solid 3 years now with this specific store being one of them. I walked into this location tonight to purchase one of their items that they keep locked up in their cabinets in the front. I've purchased items from this cabinet many times before at the Huntington Beach location in Goldenwest, where it was just as simple as getting a team member to unlock the cabinet and bring me to either the register at the very front or whichever one is open to check out. At this location on 17th street in Costa Mesa, however, I patiently waited for 5 minutes or so at the cabinet with numerous employees walking past me, which is no problem! I completely understand I'm not the only person in the store, however, I eventually needed to ask one of the register workers to please help me, instead of doing that, he told me that I need to walk around and wait in one of the register lines, even though two of them were completely empty! So okay, I went to stand in the line and was the first one up and the register worker just looks at me and walks away, just leaving me there without saying anything? So okay, now I'm just standing in the line waiting some more, until I see another customer, some younger girl, do the same exact thing I originally did (stand by the cabinet and ask an employee to help) and the employee immediately opened up the cabinet for her. Just like me, this customer had no shopping cart or any kind of other product in her hand waiting for purchase. So I go straight up to this worker at the cabinet and very nicely ask her to open the adjacent cabinet door for me so I can purchase this item and she gives me the most ridiculous attitude, asking me "Well who is helping you? I'm assisting someone else right now." I explained to her very calmly what just occurred with the other employees and how I have been here waiting and I am just met with more attitude and questioning, leading to me just being done with the encounter and telling her never mind and walking out the door. Please keep in mind that this same worker, I'm assuming is a manager (because she had cabinet keys) literally checked me out 2 days prior after I spend $200 in groceries at the very same store.
It is actually comical how complicated these employees made this be, and while it was only a small purchase this time they have lost me as a customer today and for every day in the future. This manager, a middle-aged lady with blonde/silver hair is definitely a huge reason why, as well as the cashier (middle aged man with white/tan skin and short hair). Thank you to this Ralph's location for making me feel like a jerk for wanting to buy something from a location I have spend thousands of dollars at. Hope no one else deals with the same embarrassment of a staff that I just did. read more