There are two large chains of supermarkets in the area. Stop and Shop is the larger of the two. With the large chains, you get a nice selection of products. Typically, stores will give you a little something extra in the way of service to make you feel as if you're not getting completely ripped-off. Not Stop and Shop. I only stop by their locations out of necessity, and never fail to leave offended.
This location is situated in a shopping plaza. The store is on one side of the horribly designed parking lot, and a Stop and Shop gas station is on the other. Immediately upon entering, I was greeted with a foul aroma in the vestibule where they store various seasonal items and shopping carts. It smelled like trash juice. You know, the juice that drips out of the bottom of an old bag of trash. Yup, that's what they subject their customers to.
The entrance takes you into their produce section. After checking prices on their pickling cucumbers, I was reminded of yet another way they take advantage of their customers. Stop and Shop loves to price produce by the individual piece, instead of by the pound. Now, there's a huge difference between the uniformity of a product produced by nature and one produced in a factory. You can price a television by the individual unit because they're all the same exact thing. However, fruits and vegetables vary in size, so honest businesses sell them by weight. Not Stop and Shop. Unless you get there right after a fresh shipment, all of the larger pieces have been picked out by other shoppers. This leaves you paying a premium price for inferior product. Wonderful...
As most stores do these days, Stop and Shop carries their own brand of products. There's the Stop and Shop brand, then there's the Guaranteed Value brand. Guaranteed Value is truly a site to see. It appears that they did everything they could to design a label that is nothing short of shameful. It's reminiscent of some Soviet-era breadline handout. I would find it hard to believe that they didn't hire a firm to design these labels, giving them the instructions "Make sure everybody is too embarrassed to be seen with this." I didn't have a camera with me, so all I can say is: do yourself a favor and go look at the bottles of hot sauce. You owe it to yourself. Seriously, it's worth a special trip.
So, now I've got my products, and head to the check-out. Most of the open aisles are self-service. These sound good in theory, but there are good days and bad days. I've hit streaks at these things where about a third of my groceries simply won't go through. Don't even bother hitting the button for customer service. Out of about 20 times hitting that button over the years, I have had one employee respond. I recommend hitting the button, then immediately go tell an employee that you need help, then wait for them to pass it on to a few more people. The limited registers with human beings staffing them will not have a bagger 9 out of 10 times. Like I said earlier, you get nothing by way of service to justify the higher prices.
I end up at various Stop and Shop locations due to them being everywhere. I feel dirty every time I give them my money. They have gone so far downhill over the years that I try to avoid them at all costs. Going here yesterday only served to remind me of why they don't deserve one single penny from me. read more
