Grocery Anthropology Part 1
Apparently most of the world hates my friendly neighborhood grocery store, and I'm still not entirely sure why. (Yes, I'm aware of the bias where people only post reviews on places like yelp if they only have extremely positive or negative experiences, but I've heard this opinion expressed by friends in person too.)
Maybe I'm just not particularly picky after spending last summer in Swarthmore, where the co-op is overpriced and Genuardi's is far away enough to be mildly annoying in extreme temperatures (e.g. Philadelphia summer) and feels even further when you're walking back laden with bags, or waiting approximately one eternity for the bus.
But the complaints I see about Fresh Grocer mostly seem to boil down to the following, in order from most to least legitimate in my mind
1) Expensive. Probably true of the prepared foods, but I'm not buying those. True of the good cheese, but that's true anywhere, and I'm willing to shell out a little extra for quality. (And it still beats the co-op.) True of some specialty items (e.g. tahini), but again, no worse than other places. My personal boring staples--lentils, canned chick peas, baking supplies, rice, pasta, canned tuna, eggs--are about the same as most other places I've seen, which range from Wal-Marts and cheap grocery stores in New York City to giant suburban NJ monstrosities and higher end places like Whole Foods. Get the store brand and they're even better.
Conclusion: legitimate complaint, but my shopping patterns are anomalous so what do I know?
2) Crowded/Poor Layout. Sure it's not one of the aforementioned spacious suburban monstrosities, but have these people ever seen a grocery store in Manhattan? Just thinking about grocery shopping in New York makes me claustrophobic.
Philadelphia shoppers who haven't had the pleasure of shopping on the Upper East Side should note that the Trader Joe's in Center City is equally crowded and narrow-aisled, if not worse.
Mawrters relocated to West Philly should also note that The Fresh Grocer is MILES cleaner and better organized than the Bryn Mawr Acme. I don't know what's up with that place--so anomalous to have such a cramped, dingy store in such a wealthy town.
3) Surly staff. This one boggles me a little. Going to the grocery store is purely a transactional thing. (Or an anthropology exercise, if you're me, but I digress.) Go in, find your cheese and peanut butter and beans, go to register, check out, head home. While it's certainly nice if the cashier decides to smile, it doesn't matter tremendously to me so long as I head home with everything I set out to get. So far, I've managed to do this every time. What's to complain about?
Also, the reviews of the next closest grocery store to me feature complaints like "I brought my eggs here and they all turned out to be rotten" and "smells like rotting meat." Given the choice between rotten food and sullen cashiers, give me the sullen cashiers any day.
ETA: Another quick yelp search reveas that the only large chain grocery stores in Philadelphia that have an above-three-star average and less than/equal to 10 reviews are Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I'm not sure if that's a more telling statement about the state of groceries in Philadelphia or the kind of demographic that uses yelp.
Maybe I'm just not particularly picky after spending last summer in Swarthmore, where the co-op is overpriced and Genuardi's is far away enough to be mildly annoying in extreme temperatures (e.g. Philadelphia summer) and feels even further when you're walking back laden with bags, or waiting approximately one eternity for the bus.
But the complaints I see about Fresh Grocer mostly seem to boil down to the following, in order from most to least legitimate in my mind
1) Expensive. Probably true of the prepared foods, but I'm not buying those. True of the good cheese, but that's true anywhere, and I'm willing to shell out a little extra for quality. (And it still beats the co-op.) True of some specialty items (e.g. tahini), but again, no worse than other places. My personal boring staples--lentils, canned chick peas, baking supplies, rice, pasta, canned tuna, eggs--are about the same as most other places I've seen, which range from Wal-Marts and cheap grocery stores in New York City to giant suburban NJ monstrosities and higher end places like Whole Foods. Get the store brand and they're even better.
Conclusion: legitimate complaint, but my shopping patterns are anomalous so what do I know?
2) Crowded/Poor Layout. Sure it's not one of the aforementioned spacious suburban monstrosities, but have these people ever seen a grocery store in Manhattan? Just thinking about grocery shopping in New York makes me claustrophobic.
Philadelphia shoppers who haven't had the pleasure of shopping on the Upper East Side should note that the Trader Joe's in Center City is equally crowded and narrow-aisled, if not worse.
Mawrters relocated to West Philly should also note that The Fresh Grocer is MILES cleaner and better organized than the Bryn Mawr Acme. I don't know what's up with that place--so anomalous to have such a cramped, dingy store in such a wealthy town.
3) Surly staff. This one boggles me a little. Going to the grocery store is purely a transactional thing. (Or an anthropology exercise, if you're me, but I digress.) Go in, find your cheese and peanut butter and beans, go to register, check out, head home. While it's certainly nice if the cashier decides to smile, it doesn't matter tremendously to me so long as I head home with everything I set out to get. So far, I've managed to do this every time. What's to complain about?
Also, the reviews of the next closest grocery store to me feature complaints like "I brought my eggs here and they all turned out to be rotten" and "smells like rotting meat." Given the choice between rotten food and sullen cashiers, give me the sullen cashiers any day.
ETA: Another quick yelp search reveas that the only large chain grocery stores in Philadelphia that have an above-three-star average and less than/equal to 10 reviews are Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I'm not sure if that's a more telling statement about the state of groceries in Philadelphia or the kind of demographic that uses yelp.