Brooklyn Fare — Local services in New York

The male manager on duty today at 6:30 pm is the reason I won’t be shopping here anymore. Yes, the location is really convenient, and yes, I knew the prices were higher than any other grocery store in the area, but the line was crossed for me when the store rung me up for a bottle of balsamic that was $12.00 more than the price they listed it as. Tacking on an extra 12 dollars to your grocery bill these days is pretty messed up, especially when your items are already overpriced.

It took me two trips back to the store before the manager could help. He was eventually able to refund me the money, but there was no apology for the inconvenience of two extra trips to the store or for being over charged 12 dollars due to the store’s mistake. The manager walked around the store expecting me to follow (?) without saying a word to me and mumbling to himself. The only thing he said to me after he processed my refund was “you’re good”. That’s all I got. Maybe it was my bad for expecting him to say sorry for overcharging you, or sorry for the inconvenience, or sorry for having a terrible attitude. The attitude was very much that this was my problem and I was lucky I had a receipt and he was doing me a favor. That’s the kind of attitude I expect at a big box store. I’m not sure how this store pretends to be “local” when they treat people who actually live in this community like that. It’s one thing to make a mistake, it’s another thing altogether to handle it so poorly.

Next time I’ll be going to one of the many other locations in the area where you can get groceries at a cheaper price and where they probably won’t charge you an extra twelve bucks....

We have been customers at BF for 10 years. It used to be WONDERFUL- the staff was like family (we exchanged holiday gifts, have had several of them to our home for dinner, etc), the food was excellent and shopping there was always an enjoyable experience.

The new ownership is TERRIBLE. The self check out is incredibly glitchy, employees are clearly unhappy, and worst of all, we find expired and/or rotten food every time we go in there. From expired coffee to rotten bars of cheddar cheese, holiday candy that expired in 2019 for sale in 2021, foul smelling poultry and now, rotten ginger and onions. Each time, we point things out to the manager and NOTHING CHANGES. They don’t care. The former owners were lovely. They sent us platters of food as a gift when our child was born. They went out of their way to get to know their customers and the whole neighborhood loved going in there. Now it’s a desolate wasteland of expired food and an all around depressing experience. It’s also rarely busy because word is out that it’s terrible.

Edit: Having read through all of these reviews, it’s clear that BF doesn’t care about fixing their issues with spoiled and expired foods. Therefore, I’ve filed complaints with the city and state departments of health. It’s unacceptable that these problems are continually reported to management and nothing is done. It’s only a matter of time before they go bankrupt. It used to be a bustling market full of happy employees and customers and now it’s empty and miserable. Please report them so they can face some actual...

Easily my favorite supermarket in the neighborhood - it manage to feel both more personal and human than the big Whole Foods 365 three blocks east, while also generally having deeper/better choices. Really helps that this is a full service place, with humans manning the butcher, cheese, deli, etc stations unlike WF. Usually much faster to checkout too, even when the line looks endless. I've always thought this is one of those stores which does a surprisingly good job serving the needs of both the older community and the newer gentrifiers. Of course there are some products their rivals have better selection or prices (especially staples where you can get their 365 house brand cheap) but more often I think the reverse is true.

EDIT: apparently changed ownership in 2021 - I believe a Brooklyn Fare in Manhattan is ironically the only one under the original ownership. I've not noticed significant changes in inventory - it remains better overall than Whole Foods on Flatbush, but each has things the other doesn't - but service is less friendly, and quite frequently one item in my cart turns out to have an outrageously high price which I didn't notice until checkout.

Last night I watched the checkout person blatantly swipe an item twice and had to ask him to correct this: it'd be easier to feel 100% sure this was an honest mistake if the icy service and unpredictable buyer-beware pricing didn't already give off a whiff of predatory hostility. Docking a star and more often ordering from Fresh Direct, which of course has...