Stop & Shop — Local services in Madison

.I've been shopping at this location weekly for 23 years. The downhill pattern in cleanliness, product quality and availability and service, along with insidious price increases, has finally reached critical mass. While the handful of long-time staff continue to be hard-working and customer-centric, their efforts are overshadowed by the behaviour of the younger, newer staff. I am sincerely concerned about the overwhelming lack of hygiene--more than a few of these people look and smell dirty. I have had multiple houseguests come back from the store stunned by this, and asking how we tolerate it. Tonight, near the parking lot entrance, there was an employee sitting in the dirt under a tree, smoking and drinking. A few minutes later I watched him walk back into the store, and return to work without washing his hands. And then there is the young man with very long hair who simply cannot keep his hands off it. His hair is well past his shoulders, he leaves it loose, and has a habit of constantly shaking it out while continuously running his hands through it. I have never seen anyone who compulsively runs their hands through their hair like this, and I cant fathom why he would be allowed to do this around food. And to our great misfortune, there are several obese employees who routinely give off a foul, unwashed odor. These people are handling our food! And yes, the fish department smells, too. I have mentioned this several times to management, to no avail. And the store IS filthy--I have watched general cleanliness slip away over the last three or so years to the point where the store is depressing and unpleasant. Most difficult to tolerate is the poor product quality. For the last several years at least one of the produce items I purchase each week proves inedible. I do know it does not have to be this way, especially in the summer. (Visit the vegetable department at Big Y in July. THEY have gorgeous, local produce.) And since it's summer now, we can count on price increases and empty shelves, since they never seem to plan for the influx of summer visitors beyond hiking the prices. It's a disaster, and I will finally be moving on despite the...

This store used to be well stocked and staffed with people who were both courteous and helpful. Things have changed! By and large my experience with the staff has been rudeness or avoiding offering help.I stopped at the customer service counter a couple of days ago at 8:57am and started to ask the woman behind the counter what aisle I could find something. She very rudely said "I don't do anything before 9." Clearly the right person to be stationed at Customer Service. A couple of weeks ago the bakery area had a card table set up with a sign reading "pumpkin donuts." Except the donuts were all apple cider. I mentioned it to a woman working in the bakery and she shrugged her shoulders. I guess it would be too hard to remove the sign. The self check-out scanning devices are in non-working shape. They mostly scan items well enough but the touch screen on many of them do not work, so when you try to press the "check-out" button it doesn't work. I pointed that out today to the woman monitoring the self check-out area. She took the device from me and put it back on the charging rack for someone else to use. WOW!!! I had gone to the same rack to replace the defective one with a different one but the card reader that you scan your ID card to said that none of the devices were charged. I was at the store a couple of days ago to buy some items......the shelves used to be better stocked during Covid. I went back today and the same shelves were sparsely stocked. On the bright side, they have new shopping carriages and there's plenty of parking. It's truly unfortunate. I want to support my local store but there's just too many issues. I end up having to go to another grocery store to get...

This place is a disaster. I got a few things that I needed to make monkey bread and headed to a self checkout register. Upon arrival, the machine was disgustingly filthy and sticky. The bagging area was dirty and the glass for scanning the groceries was practically black in filth. Nevertheless, we attempted to scan our groceries. The self checkout scanner was unable to read my items after trying scanning them several times. After scanning just one item the self checkout machine had a meltdown and said "please wait for assistance." This happened again, again, and again, until someone manually handled the issue. After trying to scan each of the items several times, they finally individually registered (or at least I thought they did). Next thing I knew, some lady with her lips dripping condescension approached and claimed that we missed a few items, acting like we were trying to steal. After finally scanning all of the items I inserted my card in the pinpad and wasn't surprised when the chip reader claimed that my card was unreadable. Never in my life have I had an issue with any pinpad machine reading my card except at the Stop & Shop of Madison, CT. We were unable to pay for the groceries due to the chip reader malfunction and left the store in frustration. Fortunately, Shoprite of Clinton was not too far down the road, and graciously accepted my business and gave me no problems. The prices were better, the self checkout machine had no issues, and most importantly, I was able to leave the store without a pounding headache. I will be bringing my business to there...