Stop & Shop — Attraction in Somerville

Stop&Shop I hesitate to complain about anyone, or any place, but today I’ve decided to drop that hesitation.

I just went to the Somerville, MA. store at Alewife Brook Parkway. I am a regular customer, as is my wife, but no matter what day, or time I go, there is NEVER anyone at the fish counter. I usually give a shout for assistance or sometimes hunt down an employee at the meat dept.

Today was no exception. Customers who were at the fish dept. gave up waiting. I called the telephone number for the store and selected the ‘fish counter’ option. Eventually a lady informed me that the person responsible for fish was “on break”. I asked how long “break” would last and was informed “15 minutes”. She was unable to tell me when the person’s “break” had started nor when it would end.

Having waited, I now called the store telephone number once again but this time selected ‘customer service’. Once again, the same lady answered.

I asked if an employee could come to the counter to assist me and was informed that in order to select and weigh a piece of fish, an employee had “to be qualified” to do so. Apparently, no one else at this store had the necessary “qualifications” to provide me with a piece of fish!

I then drove to the nearby ‘Whole Foods’ store where the fishmonger counter had a permanent employee who greeted me nicely and was able to...

Great, it's close to me, but it's got the most miserable selection of foods compared to pretty much any other store of its size, and they don't seem to be interested in restocking anything. Not a good reflection on the Stop & Shop brand.

Aaaaaannnnd... several years later, fool me twice, and let's subtract another star. I just had the most hostile experience after communicating a problem with the self-checkouts that I've experienced on multiple occasions, and watched numerous other people experience - while I've waited for the unresponsive staff to address the issue. I was told that the problem was in fact, me and only me. Not "oh, we know, we're working on it," which would have been the only acknowledgement I needed, but instead, a lecture on why I'm the "only problem here." Yeah. I'm not. I've done this one before. So have the other customers who I've watched be significantly less tolerant than me. New plan - never come back, and while I assume most of the other customers here only ever visit because of pure convenience, I recommend they make other plans as well and let this rusty, poorly-lit shack finally...

They don’t stock a lot of options and are slow to take past due products off the shelves. One time I bought a dozen eggs (it was the end of June - beginning of July) and realized the “best if used by” date was may 20th. So I went to the front desk and the woman seemed annoyed (guessing she thought I was trying to return old eggs for cash). But I said I just want to exchange them. She said fine. I go back to where they store the eggs and literally every dozen, in that brand, are past their due dates. They all said May 20th. I went back and told the woman working the front desk and now, I could tell, she felt bad. Her response was “wow that’s disgusting”. I was able to sub it out for another brand but it was frustrating. Also they’ve been out of Brigham’s chocolate ice cream for about 2 years. But I swear the guy who orders it think cookies and cream is the same flavor as chocolate because they both have the same color...