(no subject)

[rivka]

We've been shopping at the same Superfresh supermarket for years (ever since we moved downtown) despite the fact that it has never, ever had adequate service. It's close. It's huge, with a good variety of fresh foods and a nice meat and fish section. They recently expanded and yuppified it, so that now you can buy products like duck bacon alongside the Oreos and 12-packs of toilet paper. So even though the cashiers were slow, inefficient, and sometimes rude, we kept shopping there. We'd go on Saturday or Sunday afternoon and do a massive shopping for the week, supplemented with occasional trips to the corner grocery store for milk and bread, or to Whole Foods for expensive treats.

Then, about a month ago, I went shopping by myself, late in the evening. And discovered that, as bad as the weekend afternoon cashiers were, they were in fact the creme de la creme of the Superfresh workforce. The cashier and the night manager combined to provide a checkout experience so awful, so over-the-top rude, that another customer felt compelled to follow me into the parking lot for a debriefing. I swore I'd never shop there again.

We've spent the last month making the dreary round of local supermarkets, trying to find someplace that we'd be willing to buy our weekly groceries. The Giant had good service and nice produce at good prices, but the store was small, dingy, and ridiculously lacking in things that we've come to consider staples. No turkey sausage. No whole wheat Goldfish crackers. Processed smoked cheese masquerading as Gouda, complete with a brown wax wrapper, that totally fooled us until we opened it at home and found it inedible. "The only pre-sliced cheeses they have are American, Swiss, and Provolone," Michael told me, "so we'll have to get our cheese sliced at the deli." And at the deli, our cheese choices were... American, Swiss, Provolone, and Cheddar. Worst of all, the store-brand organic frozen vegetables were appalling - dry, tasteless, woody peas, and strangely yellowish broccoli. Impossible.

We tried to find stores in wealthy neighborhoods, on the theory that rich people can afford to demand good quality and variety. So our next stop was the Shoppers Food Warehouse adjacent to Federal Hill, one of the yuppiest of Baltimore neighborhoods. I should've known that it wouldn't work out the moment I walked inside and saw the screaming yellow-and-black signage everywhere; upscale stores rarely have bright colors. And indeed, this one pretty much had nothing to recommend it. There was no fish counter - just some packaged stuff. No artisanal bread. A paltry cheese section. A poor variety of produce, with almost nothing organic. Terrible bread.

I was nearly in tears as we left, and suggested to Michael that we might need to swallow our pride and go back to the Superfresh. Having to negotiate new supermarkets every week was bad enough - not being able to find anything, week after week - without the added stress of struggling to find any food at all that I was willing to feed my family. "Let's try one more store," he said - the Safeway in the ultra-hot harborside neighborhood of Canton. Well... okay.

We went yesterday. I had a good feeling as soon as I caught sight of the tasteful, discreet dark green signage and the careful lighting - not because I care about what my supermarket looks like, as long as it's clean, but because their efforts to appeal to a high-end market probably meant that they had the foods we prefer. We hit the produce section first. The large central island displaying organic fruits and vegetables was promising. And then I came upon the "produce Rivka has barely even heard of" section. Yucca root. Cherimoyas. Two different kinds of cactus. And a few things that I can't even name, because they were so foreign to me. An excellent sign. I started to breathe easier.

The rest of the store confirmed my first impressions. The pre-sliced cheese section included our favorite sandwich cheeses, Havarti and smoked Gouda. The deli was large, well-stocked, and fast. The fish counter was gorgeous and varied, and they had a nice selection of meats. They had Alex's organic whole-wheat frozen waffles and our preferred brand of organic frozen vegetables. I was holding my breath by the time we got to the checkout counter, hoping that nothing would happen to spoil things... but the service was fine. Polite and reasonably quick.

Whew.

It's halfway across town,[1] and the prices are kind of high (although not Whole Foods high) - but it is so totally worth it, to not have to worry about food shopping anymore. It really really stressed me out to have week after week of bad grocery experiences! Thank God that's over.



[1] Address in Google Directions is not our real address.

Comments

[jilesa.livejournal.com]

I think the SuperFresh you left is the one that I shop at-- on 41st St.? I go there early Saturday or Sunday mornings, and I've been mostly pleased with the experience. As long as I'm there before 8:30am, there aren't so many stupid people clogging the aisles and the cashiers who work the early morning shift have been generally pleasant. MUCH better than either of the grocery stores I used to patronize when I lived up on Loch Raven Boulevard, at any rate.

Not that I think you should go back, if you had an experience there that was terrible. Just mentioning that there are times when it isn't terrible, at least in my experience. I'm glad you found another place you like better, though.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

If you were in the area I would SO take you shopping at Fairway. (Think Whole Paycheck Foods but reasonable prices, with excellent produce, fish, breads, cheeses and tea)

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Fairway is my Love God.

That is all!

n.

[balmofgilead.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how the supermarkets seem to vary by individual site rather than by name/chain. The Safeway in the southern part of Charles Village is abysmal. The Giant in Waverly is relatively nice, probably because it's only a year or two old, but there's no self-checkout and the checkout lines tend to be long.

I've also found Sundays to be the absolute worst day to shop (most crowded, most picked-over), but then I've never really been a Superfresh person.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The Safeway in the southern part of Charles Village is abysmal.

Yeah, we didn't even bother checking out what I've heard other people call the Ghetto Safeway.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

The SuperFresh isn't the very very local, walking-distance one I've been to, right? The one with the best pomegranates in the WHOLE WORLD? Because I actually liked that place.

Congratulations on finding a good place!

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

No, the one we walk to is Eddie's of Mount Vernon. It's a great little store - they pick their products carefully, their meat is very high-quality, they have a nice little wine section, and during the summer they get fabulous produce right off the farm. (You know it's good and local when the guy who picked the tomatoes has written his name on the box they're selling them out of.) But they just don't have enough variety to buy all of our food there.

Incidentally, Alex has become a huuuge sticky pom fan. She pulls at the fridge door saying "pomegranate? pomegranate?"

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Hee! You need to teach her the word 'sticky pom'. :-)

-J

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on finding a new, acceptable grocery store, much as I'll now be looking for duck bacon at every likely store I visit. Sounds like dangerously marvelous stuff.

I rarely get around to these things myself, but I do encourage you to send a copy of your post to Super Fresh headquarters along with the specifics on the store location. The Customer Service address at their website is SFcustomer@aptea.com and the mailing address given on the site is:

Super Fresh Customer Service
2 Paragon Drive
Montvale, NJ 07645

Enjoy your new Safeway! Long may it provide yummy food and good shopping experiences.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Boy do I second this course of action.

[geekchick]

Shoppers Food Warehouse

Yeah, my experience with Shoppers is that the "Warehouse" is the important bit of the name there.

Too bad there's no Wegmans closer than Hunt Valley. =)

[geminigirl]

Oh yes. It was where I went when the budget was tighter than usual, despite being the closest store in the neighborhood. When I could, I'd make the time to drive twenty or thirty minutes to the really nice Safeway, or I'd plan a route home from somewhere that took my by there, so that I could do the grocery shopping. In New Jersey, too, we'd drive half an hour to the A&P or Stop and Shop. (I think Superfresh is owned by the same parent company as A&P, too.)

In Florida, I find the grocery shopping perpetually frustrating. The best place around (even better than Whole Foods-the local one of which I've found to be the worst Whole Foods experience ever) is the Fresh Market, which is too far, and their products too limited to make it the regular supplier of groceries. They are, however the only place I've found that I'd buy fish-even the Whole Foods smells to fishy for me. And I find myself disappointed at the supermarket produce selections, I do go to the Farmer's market, but there's one produce purveyor there, and so the selection is very limited. I would love to have your luck and find a decent store to shope at. I'm very glad you did.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

You know, if you'd posted asking for recommendations, I'd probably have written, "Have you tried Safeway lately?" They've managed to remake themselves to keep up with the times, and even after a new supermarket opened closer to my home this summer, with a fancy wine and cheese section, I still do most of my shopping at Safeway.

And by the way, their "O" line of organic foods is excellent value for the money.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

my demand for a grocery store is that it have veggie nuggets, shelf stable indian food, *and* diet coke. um, also that i not have screaming attacks of agoraphobia when i walk in. there's a cub and a rainbow very near my house, both of which have the sorts of food i want, but they make me want to crawl into my cart and hide. there's a local upscale chain, however, that has all of these things, plus good cheese, good bread, good produce, and while it's a touch crowded it's better than "the diet coke is a mile and a half that way".

boy, i need to go grocery shopping. :)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh I know what you mean about how awful it feels to have bad grocery shopping experiences and be stuck. I'm glad you have that Safeway option.

Your story makes me feel grateful for what I have. On my way home from work is a medium-sized expensive A&P with okay produce and bakery. Slightly out of my way are a cheap loud-colours store with unpredictable assortments of good inexpensive produce, off-brand staples, and not always patient clerks, and three days a week a farmers' market with good bread and eggs and produce. And sometimes I have access to a car and can go to the big Loblaws to get all the President's Choice products they don't have at the other places.

Supermarkets

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It's simply amazing how medeocre most American grocery stores are. I sometimes can't believe that we put up with it. Then I remember who most of my co-shoppers are.

B

[eeyorerin]

I am glad that you have found a good store to shop at. Hopefully you will quickly memorize the layout!

*clings to local Wegmans*

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I worked in the grocery business for more years than I want to think about, in perishables (produce/deli), and then Front End management, so I look at these stores from a professional point of view. I'm tagging my thoughts onto the end of Rivka's entry, so they're visible together.

The SuperFresh had decent perishables -- their recent "remodel" brought in a lot of new products that seemed to get a tryout and then disappeared. This showed up in the perishables section most of all, and while they had good quality on the items they did stock, they also ran out of things a lot. Meat/seafood were uniformly very good, bordering on "excellent" -- no real problems. Grocery and general merchandise were very good in quality, selection, and price. Dairy was also very good -- your typical problems there are weak selection and expired product, and that never came up. Front End was uniformly awful, with poorly trained cashiers (slow, not very friendly, and poorly informed about products), bad Front End management (insufficient staffing & supervision, poor oversight), and awkwardly laid out. It made my grind my teeth to have to go through the checkouts, but everything else was good enough that I was willing to put up with the awfulness of the Front End. Distance-wise, it took about 10-15 minutes to get there from our house.

When Rivka told me about her unpleasant experience shopping there, I totally agreed that we should change. Had I been the store manager, I'd have loved to have known about the experience that had befallen one of my customers (and I'd have fired both the cashier and the supervisor who handled it so disgracefully), but like most folks who get pissed at a store, we didn't bother telling them -- we just stopped going. (In the grocery business, you get between 8-10 upset customers for every 1 that complains.)

The Giant and the SFW -- well, Rivka summed it up. Neither was acceptable; they were marginal, in the sense of "beats starving", but not someplace anyone gets thrilled about shopping. I might have been willing to consider them for partial runs, but shopping at three or four stores on a regular basis is a non-starter, too.

The Safeway is a store that we'd seen before it was remodeled, and they did a very nice job. It's well-laid-out, and while I'd like to see a wider variety products in the meat cases (in which case, I probably shouldn't shop there on Sunday afternoon), I'm overall reasonably pleased with it. I would still prefer to shop at Wegman's, I think, in a perfect world, but that's a half-hour trek at the best time of day, and a little pricy (though so, so worth it). The trip to Canton takes about the same time as driving to Super Fresh (assuming you avoid rush hour). I'm looking forward to shopping at the new store!

[lyrical1.livejournal.com]

I often shop on Sunday's and find the store very picked over. But, its usually the only time I have to go. For example I haven't been able to buy seltzer for 3 weeks. Often there is nothing of an entire category (bananas, sliced cheese, yogurt) especially if its on sale. I'm not sure when the best time is but it sounds better than the alternatives though!

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

My worst problem with dairy, when I ate dairy, was inadequate refrigeration. I think the legal requirement is to keep refrigerators at 40 degrees F. But milk spoils noticably faster at 40F than at 38F, and that was enough to make me buy dairy at a store whose meat and produce were ... inadequate.

And of course weak selection is more noticable to me now that I drink soy milk. Some stores don't have soy milk at all. Others have a choice between 4 or 5 brands, a choice of regular and low-fat, a choice of refrigerated or shelf-stable, choices of plain unsweetened, with sugar and vanilla, with sugar and chocolate, with artificial sweeteners and flavors, with coffee syrup, of all things...it's really remarkable.

[lyrical1.livejournal.com]

Hey, thats my side of town!!! I dislike that grocery store. Or rather, I have found much dislike for all grocery stores since I moved to MD. Who knew that New England had consistently, good groceries?

I rotate with Trader Joes and occasional juant to Wegmans and that Safeway to meet all of my grocery needs.

If you want to visit the park with Alex and grab a coffee some day let me know.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

It's amazing what a difference a good market can make to one's quality of life.

We've got one huge, bright, nice SuperFresh, but I have to drive to it. I can walk to Trader Joe's, which is three blocks from my office (though we do one trip per week by car and stock up). And there are two small but good little produce markets between home and work.

This is why I love living in the city.

As long as I can find a good school for the kids...

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

I alternate between "Food Basics" where everything is fresh and cheap, and "Loblaws" where they will still be stocking everything, even if it is out of season a bit. In extremes I will go to the 24 hour A&P and pay the price.

Even at "Food Basics" where some of the clients are obviously counting pennies, the service is courteous.

I like the atmosphere at "Food Basics"

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I like our local Safeway. I think some of the Safeways have gone upscale, though some of them are still cruddy. The nice ones are nice, and have a good variety.