The Olive Oil Pantry — Local services in Livermore

I am honestly surprised by all the glowing reviews of this business. I drove quite a distance on a coworker's recommendation after enjoying some of OOP's product at a company lunch a few months back. My coworker spoke highly of how friendly and helpful the employees were, and I'm sad to say I saw none of that.

My companion and I came in shortly after opening. Neither of the two employees working at the time greeted us on entry, and only one said hello back after I took the initiative to speak first. As this was our first visit, I would have expected an employee to explain their sampling procedure, ask if we were looking for a particular product or type of product, ask if we had any questions, and offer recommendations based on, you know, speaking with their customer. Instead we had to basically figure the sampling out for ourselves, and wandered on our own with no interaction from the employees until we were ready to make our selections and check out, though their conversation skills seemed lively enough with a third employee who came in shortly after we arrived.

Honestly, I am embarrassed that I still made a purchase after this lack of service and basic human interaction from the employees, and would have walked out empty-handed had I not been purchasing for friends and family as well as myself. I have never as a customer felt so unwanted or unwelcome in any business I have patronized. Thankfully the Olive Oil Pantry is not the only small business of it's kind, and as much as I enjoyed their product when first introduced to it and will use what I got, they will not be getting my custom or my...

Traveling on vacation, we decided to stop in for lunch. Very strange atmosphere. Told by staff only hotdogs and sandwiches today. Was really expecting an olive oil / bread app or something. Our party needed to use the restroom, but it was locked and needed a combination to get in. Asked staff about restroom and they handed me a key to a portable bathroom outside. Later they gave us a combo for bathrooms. When ordering, there seemed to be a lot of tension between the two ladies, maybe sisters. Lots of arguing and kind of backhand comments to each other. Seemed one lady was doing all the work while the other didn't want to do much. Other customers showed up for lunch just after we ordered and they had access to other lunch items that we did not, strange and bad business. For drinks we had to walk over the general store area and get our own, not a real problem but the place was trying to be more upscale in decor but very laid back in service, just strange. Sandwiches, not bad and hot dogs just ok. They called them street dogs, def different than a Chicago street dog (the standard of street dogs). Had some neat stuff in the general store and the milk they sell is actually pretty great! Never once offered an olive oil tasting/sampling, also strange for an olive oil business. Overall experience was just ok, not a destination to shoot for on a vacation. They did mess our ticket up and didn't charge us enough, pointed that out. They brought back a new ticket and still didn't charge us enough, that was on them. Just a...

Several years ago we moved out of state so we couldn’t get to the store. We ordered our stand by salad dressings online. We are now back in California so we made a point to visit the store. While one team member assisted my wife in custom mixing salad dressing, another team member assisted me in choosing balsamic vinegar. They have a large variety of balsamic vinegars to sample. They have a very knowledgeable staff. She recommended the fig infused balsamic vinegar to start, which was excellent. I sampled others and also chose a bottle of Bordeaux Cherry and Pomegranate. My wife created several bottles of custom mixed salad dressing. They have a variety of other items in their store. We also selected some...