Tesco Extra — Local services in Trafford

IMPROVED SINCE FIRST REVIEWED: newest review at bottom. Terrible cafe service. The great thing about this Tesco Extra is its covered parking making it ideal to keep dry when its raining or cool when its sunny. Great store with wide range of goods and nice cafe. Only caveat: gets very busy on match days as Manchester United Football club ground is only a couple of hundred yards away. A recent bank holiday cafe visit highlighted another problem too (presumably due to low staff on bank holiday). All the tables had used pots, or were dirty, as were the seats. Had previously given a five star review here but have changed it today for a one star because of terrible cafe service. Waited 50 minutes before asking for a refund for a breakfast. The person in front of me was also getting a refund and had been waiting over an hour. The person sat at the next table to me had been told there was a 30 minute wait, but neither myself nor the person who had been waiting over an our were told about any wait at all. Cafe did not seem all that busy but I only saw 3 lots of food brought out during the 50 minutes I was waiting. Nobody clearing tables, nobody (apparently) cooking food (or at least, not quickly or efficiently). Terrible cafe service. ONE YEAR LATER returned a year later. Still poor service. Got oil on my trousers from sitting in a dirty cafe. Full of workmen in dirty workwear (that’s OK) but staff clear tables without wiping tables or chairs. ANOThHER YEAR LATER Much improved. Cleared and clean tables and chairs. Nicely cooked food with much warmer beans than their previously hardly warm ones. Well done. I’ve increased rating from 1 star to 3 stars, and may remove the old reviews if quality remains...

If I could rate this store as zero I would. As it is, I have to rate it as one star, and that's being generous

Tesco Stretford is a grubby warehouse type store

They no longer have delicatessen, fresh meat or fresh fish counters, everything is pre-packed now and brought in from a distribution centre of questionable origin and quality

The cheap, stark lighting in this store is abysmal The type of products available, especially any Tesco sub-brand or main Tesco mid-tier own brand label is of very poor quality, Aldi is much better

Tesco Finest is a joke, it's their worst product range in terms of quality and price

There are never enough staff on the shop floor, and the ones that you do see are pushing click and collect cages and blocking the aisles, it isn't their fault, that's a management issue at store level, and I suspect head office policy now

Availability of basic grocery items, especially in the produce aisle is poor, there are too many SKU's out of stock or currently unavailable

For a store of this size there are hardly any manned checkouts, they push you into the self-scan areas I buy the products and why should I have to scan and pack everything as well? Tesco have cut enough jobs back and I refuse to give them an excuse to cut back even further to make even more people unemployed by using the self-scan checkouts

The people that work within this store look unhappy, especially the people that work on the very few manned checkouts available

Do yourself a favour and shop elsewhere To balance this review out, Sainsbury's are just as bad now

It seems to be a case of which supermarket chain is fighting with each other in the race...

While we were shopping, my youngest child (3 yo) needed to urgently use the toilet facilities at Tesco. We did use the facilities and on our way out, the exit was blocked by a yellow barrier. I kindly asked the staff to remove the barrier so we could exit. Instead of unlocking and opening the barrier for us, a staff member (potentially cashier, middle aged, with short bob-cut blonde hair) verbally attacked me, saying that I should not be there or be using the toilets because they were closed. I explained that there were no signs or barriers but she insisted that I 'or some other idiot' (staff words) had moved the barriers. I told her that the whole interaction was not appropriate and then I started crying because of the unjust accusations, the attitude of the staff member and the embarassment i had endured in front of my kids.

Except for this appauling behaviour from the staff, what I also realised is that this Tesco is being visited by thousands of people daily. Looking back, every time I had to use the toilet facilities at that Tesco, they were either locked or filthy, smelly and unhygienic.

Probably it would be worth monitoring the state of the toilet facilities a bit more closely and potentially renovate it so that it is always accessible to people that need to used them. Tried to complain formally, but could not find a form to fill on the website and customerservice email address...