NetCost Market — Attraction in New York

Rating Cafe only. Thanksgiving weekend morning. 2 people behind counter.

Characters involved. Barista 1 with super important phone conversation. Barista 2. Myself - male of 30 years old, 6'3" in bright orange jacket. Older woman customer in white jacket. Younger woman customer. And a lioness with MK handbag and faux fur coat.

Came in at 9:00AM, no indication of where line is, I now am one of three customers standing around, it's not hard to keep track of 2 people, since you are already charging the first young lady customer, customer in white jacket is desperately looking for eye contact, so am I. So, she is #2 and I am #3.

So, as subject 1 is having her conversation, subject 2 is making a latte for customer #1, it's me and the other customer looking for eye contact, but most importantly - some coffee. the lioness silently makes her way aroud carefully placed tables and chairs and gets on the "proper" side of counter. She becomes #1 in line and gets served by subject 2. The lioness is young, knows the routine, important looking and she got bonus points for sneaking around 2 people while holding onto her cellphone and a bag at the same time. So, the white jacket cuts her loses and bounces without a caffeine fix and with a feeling that a young lioness is more important than a mother of 3 and soon to be a grandma. (You will probably find her 1 star review in here somewhere)

I am the only one left wondering if it was that hard to notice myself as I am not easy to miss. I swallow my pride, put away my white male privilege and hope for the best, with 2 baristas, a humming refrigerator compressor and God as witness. all, under the watchful eye of 3 cameras, of course.

I patiently come over to the "proper" side and place my order with subject 1. "Small Americano in a large cup, please. add 1 shot of espresso and cream." As someone who has come at the age of 13 and doesn't live in a Russian community for 15 years, I manage to say those 10 words without accent, or at least I hoped so, until Subject 1 uses her Russian (or Armenian/Ukranian/Uzbek) spy skills to detect my background and transfers the conversation into Russian, asking - "vam s molokom?" Which is essentially a question of "would you like milk in it?"

"No, thank you" - I reply and swipe my card.

There is a back and forth on how to make my coffee. Subject 2 points out that I have to pick between credit and debit... wait a second, i think "you are so aware of the situation that it makes me wonder why you missed 2 customers in the first place." But my parents taught me well not to make any scenes. I chose to stay hopeful for this story to end well.

I forgot to say that it is to go, I admit my guilt. It is obvious that I am staying, still wearing all my winter gear, I decide to keep my gloves on as I see Subject 2 pouring my coffee into a wonderful, 5oz ceramic cup with coffee distributor's logo. It's full to a point where water surface tension law that I learned in physics class snaps me back to reality and reminds me that I should speak up.

I hold up my gloved hands and ask for it to be to go. I get my 5oz in a paper cup and I a to enjoy a relatively warm day at the winter beach.

Shop local, I thought 15 minutes prior.

Shop with Starbucks I now have decided. You will get your coffee, a "good morning" with that.

Thanks for reading. You...

If you like Soviet Bread Lines, shop at Gourmanoff

This is the second time I’ve experienced being treated like dirt by the folks at Gourmanoff, so I decided to write my experience this time.

I live at the Oceana Condos across the street and was originally pleased to see this premium supermarket come into the neighborhood and planned to be a loyal customer. I saw the glass chandeliers, the fancy buffet, and the ornamental baked goods section and decided that even if I had to pay a little more for products here, it would be worth it for the shopping experience and for the service.

Unfortunately, customer service here has been so indifferent — often even rude — that I’m forced to conclude that they don’t want business from me or from any of my friends in the neighborhood.

Today’s episode is what caused me to write this. I was waiting in a very long line, since only half the normal cashiers were working. I had some frozen products that were defrosting as I waited with my young baby who was with me in a stroller, so I politely asked one of the staff members, whose name tag said Liana, if another cashier could be opened for all of us waiting in line, and so my frozen food wouldn’t defrost. She looked at me with disgust and said that food doesn’t melt in 10 minutes. I thought I had misunderstood her, so I asked for clarification, and she basically told me to leave her alone. I told that all she had to do was apologize and say there were not enough cashiers. She just responded ““go away.” I was so surprised and upset that I went to the Manager, Lena. She seemed to listen patiently enough to me and apologized, but didn’t really give me the impression that she found the attitude of the person to be unacceptable, or that she was going to do anything about it.

Another little trick that Gourmanoff pulls that I thought I’d mention is that they put merchandise on “sale” and then you go to the counter and pay and the price is totally different. It’s clearly a technique that they use, in hopes that customers don’t notice, so always double check prices.

I grew up in the Soviet Union, so I’m not be overly sensitive to bad customer service. But in this case, I believe Gourmanoff is trying to falsely portray itself as the “premium supermarket” of the neighborhood with all the fancy embellishments, but treating it’s customers like poor Soviet peasants in...

Had to change my previous review, unfortunately. Very, very sad thing happened. A little prequel: my wife almost died, recovering from surgery, so now I'm doing ALL the grocery shopping and whatsnot. The issue is that she is veeeery particular with what she wants, and if I get the wrong color beets or wrong shape potatoes I'm getting hissing upon return - postpartum whatever it's called. So recently I started going to the stores, take the pictures of what's there, send her, she picks, I buy. Worked charming so far. Ladyboss feeling in charge and relevant, I'm being helpful. Also, I figured out I can post pictures to Google maps later on to help other shoppers, and since I mostly shop in the same places I like I leave favorable reviews, since I go only to the places I'm used to and like. So the Net Cost been among those stores, for 20 years I'm going there, when it was Gourmanoff I went there too. Today I'm totally minding my business, taking pictures of some fish they sell. Comes store clerk Mariia and tells me to stop. I'm not taking pictures of workers, cameras or exits, noting safety sensitive. So I'm telling young lady that I need it to show to my sick wife. "No, use you memory, ha ha" Ok, I'm walking further, seeing diapers - now I really need help - not my forté - what do you think - they sent a security guard to shadow me. Same conversation. I'm saying "come on, your wife doesn't send you to the stores?". - "You were told to stop, you should stop". I ended up turning around and walking out, I'm not spending a dime there after that. I spent tens of thousands of dollars in Net Cost over the last 20 years, not an exaggeration. This chain is about 29 years old, I've been supporting them most of their existence. It's not Soviet Union anymore, Brothers. Don't treat people KGB style. Come to your senses - it's the era of cellphones, cameras and video conversations. If you have some safety or sanitary issues, rectify the situation, don't restrict your law-abiding patrons in their freedoms instead. You are a grocery store, not Fort Knox. You'll stay afloat if I take a picture of a loaf of bread for another 29 years. That's the...