M&S Simply Food — Local services in London

Have been popping in here for years on the way back from work or leisure trips to London. Have encountered a number of issues over time, but seem to have got gradually worse. It's a small store in a premium location, so will will cost more and or have a smaller range than a full sized Simply Food, but have encountered more and more issues with meal deal items being mislabelled or not labelled clearly. Have had a few Too good to go orders cancelled whole in store (very frustrating when you're on a late train home and stopped using this branch for them as a result) and have found staff to be increasingly unhelpful or just plain rude. Have put this update on today on the back of what will be the last incident for me. I have a couple of transparent "bags for life" that I use for quick, small shopping trips to bung meal deal items in while I'm popping round rather than juggle things, but yesterday was told by the security guard that I was not allowed to use it and had to wait for a basket to come free. This seems a very odd policy as I've not only used the same bag in other stores from M&S to Lidl for years, but this actual branch three days earlier. I queried this and the guard simply said "we don't allow it" Put my items back and used the same bag at little Waitrose with no issue. Could understand if I was putting items in pockets or they wanted to do a bag check at checkout, but was just assumed to be using a bag for life to steal rather than to reduce waste. Handy location, but with so many other convenience stores nearby with more space in them, won't...

I don’t know when you trained your security guards, but the new ones are not helpful. I stopped by the store, as I often do, to buy a sandwich on my way home. I asked the security guard if I could leave my folding bike for a moment at the top of the store while I quickly purchased a sandwich (something I’ve done over 50 times in the past). I was rudely told no and was forced to drag my folding bike and bags around the store, bumping into several people (apologies if you were one of them).

This was very unprofessional service. This is a small store where I could be seen at all times, so leaving my bike would not have been a security risk. Instead, I became a health and safety hazard as I struggled to navigate the store.

Please consider training your security staff to exercise a bit more common sense...

I can only echo what others say, I buy a lot of meal deals from various businesses and never have issues working out what's included, this particular M&S is an absolute shambles when it comes to shelf labels.

Items are seemingly placed using a random shelf picker, some are marked, others aren't but are apparently included and then aren't when you pay.

Basics like an egg mayo or cheese and celery aren't in the deal but then more "premium" options are, it's a right mess and resulted in me paying £5 more than necessary for what I believed to be 3 meal deals.

When they're already subject to a railway station premium (£5.50) it's not fun to then end up paying even more and then being berated by their indifferent staff.

I'll go elsewhere next time I'm in the area, I'd urge you...