The absolute worst Trader Joe's location I have ever been to, possibly the worst Trader Joe's in the entire country. Evanston has honestly gone to the dogs as anyone who lives here knows, but it is still surprising how bad this place is.
The cashiers are standoffish and arrogant. I worked as a cashier in one of the busiest areas of Evanston for 3 years, so I know when a place has terrible cashiers. It was my first time even seeing this cashier, and she's making sarcastic jokes at my expense, playing weird eye contact games, and basically being a Karen. Luckily I had my wits about me and left her with an insult on my way out, while avoiding dealing with a Karen on her 'home grounds'. Absolutely pathetic. The store manager should be banned from service jobs and management permanently.
And I'm not complaining about a one-off with one employee. That would be silly. I am generally a well mannered person, my literal job is in service and communications. I have had consistent issues with rude cashiers here. This type of disrespectful atmosphere happens when you don't have a man or a woman worth their salt managing your store. In fact, I've never seen a manager patrolling or doing anything but sitting on their behind here.
The biggest problem with this store is there is a gigantic amount of volume of customers. What does this mean? It means cashiers deal with more rude customers, and of course they can't dish it back to those rude customers or the next rude customer. So how do they vent? The same way everyone getting bullied vents. By 'punching down'. They vent on innocent customers they think they can get away with it on. AKA young White and Asian men ages 18-35.
Also, despite all the workers they have, you are simply gambling buying 'fresh' foods here. During the summer they literally had rotting fruits and veggies sitting on the main floor over and over, which they still do. Their frozen chicken has brown rotting sections in it almost every time. The quality is 'effing' terrible. Almost all their frozen foods have some type of soybean or processed canola oils. After the last two times I bought chicken here it was completely off I don't even bother looking at their meats section.
Their prices have gone up insanely. $3.99 for a halfgallon of organic Milk. Like $2 for a single potato. This place is the absolute scum of Evanston. I can't wait to come back here and have more sassy, weird cashiers! read more