I recently moved to Bloomfield & it was time to fill up my house with food. When I lived in Clifton, I shopped at the Stop & Shop on Broad Street & liked it a lot. I googled "supermarkets near me" and was delighted to see a Stop & Shop only 8 mins away. Oh, stupid, STUPID mistake!!!
I admit, I should've just walked right out after the scene I witnessed upon entering the supermarket, but I didn't. This scene I'm talking about was right in the entrance of the store, I went to get my cart. I didn't really understand what was happening until after it was over bc I actually haven't ever witnessed someone shoplifting from a supermarket before! Lol.
I see a kid in his 20's who looked like he'd seen better days and a larger man wearing clothes a person would wear if they were running errands or maybe I should say an outfit a man might wear to a certain kind of barber shop. Man puts his hand on the kid and tells him to get back into the store. Kid asks to see a badge and tries to continue walking out. Man (triple the size of kid) grabs kid and leads him to the back of the supermarket where I have no idea what goes on. So long story short, the man was a loss prevention security person & kid was a food shoplifter?? What could he have taken?? Lol.
Anyways, back to the supermarket. I walk into the store to get my fridge filled. I look for the rack of scanning devices where you scan & bag your food as you shop so when you're finished- you simply scan your device & pay the machine. Easy, time saving & nice to avoid dealing with any interactions with people. I like to get in, shop and leave. Supermarkets aren't a place I like to spend large amounts of time at.
Okay, there's no scanning devices at this location. I swallowed it. Their produce section was just awful!!!! Wilted salads, ugly & bruised fruit & MUCH smaller then the prior store.
I realized this was a bad idea & not all Stop & Shops were created equally.
In any event, I was there- I was getting what I could. Let's take a minute to discuss the restrooms. I had my 7 year old son with me. There was no way at this point I was going to force him to go by himself into the men's room while I waited outside for him. No way. I brought him into the ladies room. Sweet Jesus... we walked right out. There was urine, OBSCENE amounts of urine covering the floors and I doubt it had been cleaned in weeks. The smell was what made us both stop dead in our tracks and walk directly out. Let me tell everyone- DON'T TRY TO USE THE BATHROOM!!! I thought perhaps the men's restroom might be tolerable. I knocked on the door to see if anyone was inside as I am a lady & wouldn't want to accidentally walk up on a guy taking a leak. No one was inside. This restroom was even WORSE! Not going into further details then the ladies room, but it was BAD. My son decided he would hold it.
Finally, we finished the shopping of standard items already knowing we'd have to go somewhere else for the majority of what was on our shopping list. Now we still have a cart full of food. I'm thinking to myself, "why are ALL these lines so long"?
I saw the answer very quickly. Every single dam line was self checkout!!! Self checkout with an entire cart full of food. Of course this means you bag everything yourself as well. The "hold for assistance" error message went off no less then 20 times during this self checkout process. It was absolutely a DISASTER!
FINALLY, paid & ready to leave! Thank you Jesus!!! Of course on the way to my car, a woman elbows me. I didn't even say a word. She turns around and tells me in a very nasty way, "EXCUSE YOU"!!!
I am not proud of myself for even engaging with this individual. I was so frustrated and overwhelmed from my awful shopping trip, I sort of snapped.
"How are you going to elbow ME, then tell me to excuse me??? Tell me how that works???" I insisted she answer.
Apparently it was something having to do with her opinion on why my race was even shopping in "her" supermarket. Nothing to do with anything logical whatsoever.
She can keep her nasty, dirty, unstocked, under staffed, HORRIBLE supermarket! I will NEVER set foot in that place again! It's amazing how two supermarkets owned by the same company could be so opposite from one another.
I recommend to only shop here if there's some natural disaster coming & you want to stock up on 50 pound bags of rice. They had PLENTY of bags of rice.
Otherwise, stay safe, stay sane and go someplace safe & stocked. read more