Belfast Community Co-op — Local services in Belfast

The sandwiches/lunch and breakfast options are crap, I don't even know what you have to do to a fried egg to make it harder than the bread it's on and tougher to chew through than cardboard but the Co op has done it! The main thing that makes them so brutally the opposite of a "community minded business" is the fact that their prices are ungodly high so they can maximise profits in a county where 16% of children live in poverty and 14% of households experience food insecurity. A pak of low-mid shelf beer, a bag of corn chips, and a jar of salsa costs almost 40$. Yes they "give back" by asking you to round up but that's for their tax write offs, and is being donated to these causes by the customer, not the business. Google has incorrectly labeled the Co op as a 'small business' which just could not be less true and hasn't been in at least a decade. Now it is as corporately run as any chain supermarket. Their "front end manager" is the finest example of this corporate community approach as she will literally interrupt you asking how she's doing to bark "Owner number?" No greeting, no anything, these are the first words out of her mouth WHILE YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE SOME BRIEF FORM OF HUMAN TO HUMAN CONNECTION. All they care about is whether you're in their club or not, which costs hundreds of dollars to 'become' part of. It is super sad to see this new corporate business model and these more recent hires making the Co-op a pretentious, downtown version of Hannaford's that...

I like that the Co-Op emphasizes supporting local, however there are still items that directly compete with some local options. At times it is hard to figure out why. This is quite noticable now, in early July, finding west coast strawberries for instance. In the new more spacious but less apparent shelf room arrangement, I'd like to see more of the "old standby" items, and less space given to what I call "trendy" items made, processed, or handled by big and bigger corporate entities behind the labels. While the staff is generally polite, helpful and knowledgeable, they are short staffed on what seems like a fairly frequent basis, which can be inconvienent at the very least. I shop there to support the general principles represented by the Co-Op and because they have excellent fish and cheese departments, as well as the best 'health and beauty' section with a very well informed...

WOW some employees that cashier here are very unkind, unprofessional and rude for no reason. (Few different cashiers.) Saturday nite..As I'm going to check out i asked the cashier, "davy" about how I was trying to find someone to help me in the supplement area.. "yeah your not gonna find someone they all leave at 3." (No offering.. leave me alone bad attitude) So Okay.. "the website says there's an item in stock and I don't seem to find it looked everywhere" he then says "the product is on the website?" Correct.. he then proceeds to tell me the price of my transaction and i pay thats it, no have a nice nite nothing very passive aggressive.How can someone be so rude in the smallest interaction with a customer that's asking for help looking for something. Never do I have this bad of experience at tiller and rye or natural living center. Only...