Yeah, reposting Yelp reviews may not be the highest form of blogging, but I can’t resist replicating it here. If David Lynch directed a grocery store, it would be this place.
My review on Yelp can be found here!
Welcome to the worst grocery store in Berkeley! Possibly the entire East Bay!
Okay, the selection and produce are de rigueur Safeway. So there’s no problem with that. Standard hoi polloi “Why didn’t I go to Berkeley Bowl?” type stuff.
It’s the employees, and many of the customers, that make this place the awful pit of consumer despair that it is.
On rare occasions you might find someone who will actually acquiesce to helping you, but their employees are the epitome of DGAF workers. Ask for help, or even just ask them to check out the items you’ve chosen to buy, and they act as if you just interrupted them from something important. Oftentimes employees will be engaged in conversation or horseplay with, not just other coworkers, but sometimes their friends who just happened to wander in. I’ve actually got annoyed looks from them when I’ve asked them to tell me how much I need to pay, forcing them to turn away from their conversation partner.
Standing at a counter waiting for service? Annoyed looks from employees who ignore you as long as possible until they reluctantly decided to help you. Customer service desk? Constantly deserted. Need to cash in that lotto ticket or wire some money? Bend over backwards, or just bend over, because trying to get someone to help you there is a long and tepid chore of asking clueless and uninterested employees. “Sorry, no customer service right now,” is a common phrase.
And it’s not just apathy. You can be greeted with outright hostility! I once walked up to an employee, (Because I needed help at the customer service desk,) who literally started shaking with anger and chattered in a hurried voice “What do you want? What do you want? What do you need???” All I did was approach her. I didn’t say or do anything except walk up to her, yet she was not simply annoyed, she was visibly upset and angry that I dared approach her to ask a question. How dare I!
I would cry in my own beer for my Berkeley Safeway experiences but for knowing that I am not alone. Many is the time I’ve heard upset and angry customers giving the staff hell. Outbursts are common. The staff is quite used to it. They could have a red-faced customer blasting them, and they move or react not at all, completely unconcerned about upset customers or that someone might take a swing at them. Just another day on the job.
Which brings me to the clientele. I’ve been accosted, shoved, bumped into, yelled at, and muttered at by every kind of anti-social hellbat of a customer in there. It’s like a Bukowski story in that place. That store is a freak magnet, so be prepared to have an random fellow customer blast you or wave a bible in your face. (True story!) I don’t know how much I can fault the store for whacky clients, but that’s just the cherry on the parfait for this wonderland of awful people.
In hindsight, the place is rather fascinating and entertaining. How could a run-of-the-mill grocery store be so awful?
