Stop & Shop — Local services in Franklin Township

Not a bad supermarket; not quite as good as the Saker Family franchise ShopRites, in this area, but still a lot better than anything else, in this area. I like their organic apples, bananas and pears, at reasonable prices, for organic stuff. And the rest of their stuff, like canned and frozen veggies, popcorn kernels, bottled water, frozen sprouted grain breads, etc, is not that much more expensive than ShopRite, as to be prohibitive. And, you need to own a car, nowadays, to get to & from the ShopRite locations, whereas the Stop&Shop supermarkets, including this one, are more easily accessible (either by walking or by public trans). In fact, it is the closest halfway decent supermarket, to where I currently live now, in a very affordable neighborhood (but, not a ghetto, barrio, or slum--just an affordable neighborhood, loaded with people who mostly came from countries located around the Caribbean, but have become middle class owners of nice houses, in this middle class town. I, currently being a poverty-stricken, yet well educated WASP, am certainly the "minority", in this neighborhood, of middle class Jamaicans, Haitians, Dominicans, Cubans, Colombians, Mexicans, and West Africans--that's for sure! Ha ha ha ha...everybody else, in this neighborhood, has less education--and more money--than me!) So, to make a very long story short: Stop&Shop is a reasonably good supermarket chain, in this area, and I like this one on Easton Avenue, here in the Somerset section of Franklin Township, NJ (almost as much as the ShopRite in Somerville, NJ, where many of my fellow "white trash" friends, are located, which has the overall cheapest supermarket prices, in central Jersey), and so I use this Stop&Shop, a lot. On Google Maps, it is 2.0 miles from my house (where I rent a cheap room, in this otherwise nice neighborhood), but I can take shortcuts on foot through back areas that cars can't, reducing my distance to 1.5 miles, walking on foot, to this nice, well-maintained SUPERmarket. And, being a senior in Somerset County, I get a free County bus ride to & from this Stop&Shop, once a week (although I always give the good driver, a 2 buck tip). So, I give this nice, clean, reasonably affordable supermarket, 4 stars,...

I spent years shopping at Shop Rite before I discovered how good Stop & Shop is. The things that are most important to me are:

The portable scanners. When you enter the store, there is a small kiosk that has a lot of these handheld little scanner devices. You swipe your Stop & Shop card or put in your phone number and it assigns you a scanner. You keep the scanner with you and scan groceries as you put them in your cart. You can bag them and everything. When you get to the self checkout area, you just scan your scanner and your whole cart of items shows up on the screen and you can pay and leave. It’s really convenient. The scanners have touch screens. They show a bunch of info as you scan, and you can also go back to any item and remove it or check information. Great for staying on budget. I know what my total is as I go.

The rewards program. I love that I can use reward points for dollars off my next order, but I really love the 10 cents off per gallon of gas. I like to save up and get 50 cents off per gallon and then let the tank run to low and fill it up. The savings there can add up quickly.

The app. The Stop & Shop app lets you browse. It also lets you place a pickup or delivery order. The app is pretty easy to use and I like the way everything is organized and the overall look. It lets you make a grocery list that’s really handy too, especially to see prices and plan.

Store layout and cleanliness. The stores I have been to have looked very clean. The products are really well organized. It seems like they work hard to maintain a great environment for shopping.

I don’t want to shop anywhere else! Stop & Shop is my recommendation any time...

Stop and shop overall is not bad but it’s hit or miss when it comes to the seafood department. You either get the guy with the aggressive attitude or NO ONE comes to counter. For example, I came to the store today and I came early because usually they’re wild caught salmon sells out quickly. I get to the counter no one is there. Granted not a big deal because people could be doing something in the back or he had to go attend to something and then come back out. Already waited almost 20 minutes then I flagged down someone that works there and asked her can you page the seafood department I’ve been waiting and there’s no one coming out. Mind you within that 20 minutes I was waiting, I did see someone in the back kind of rummaging through things so I just assumed he would finish and then come out and he just disappeared. So she paged the seafood department and still waited. Another 15 to 20 minutes and no one came out. It was just frustrating because why do I have to wait almost 40 minutes for someone to come out just to get an order for me. My time is precious just like anyone else. If you go to ShopRite, which I ended up going to, someone came up to me within 10 to 15 seconds and I was in and out in 10 minutes. I’ve been going there for years and I see a lot of the same people that have worked there for years. It’s like if you don’t want to help anyone or partake and customer service don’t work in a place where you have to talk to people sometimes!! I see why a lot of people stick to ordering their groceries, at least they don’t have to deal with unhappy...