H Mart — Local services in New York

This was my first time in an HMART and I will never be back! The racial profiling is so extremely blatant and I suggest that you NOT spend your money here if you're Black. Companies that see you as a criminal instead of a customer do not deserve your hard earned money. Looking through the reviews, I see that this is a common practice by this business. Read about my experience below to learn more about how I was racially profiled.

The story: I'm wandering around the store a bit as I'm unfamiliar with the layout but eventually I find the case of frozen tteokboki that I'm looking for. As I'm perusing the the case, a member of staff comes out of nowhere and steps DIRECTLY in front of me to "organize" the already organized items. He doesn't say excuse me or anything. I look to my right and surprise...a security guard comes round the corner nearly bumping right into me. They joke with each other for a minute and the security guard leaves.

I peep the situation immediately and so I end up moving down the row of frozen foods because I'm just curious to see what happens next. Guess what? The employee actually FOLLOWS me and then pretends to organize another clearly organized case. So I speak to him. This man actually pretends like he doesn't hear me. Absolutely wild and rude. I put back the bag of tteokboki I was going to purchase and abandon my shopping trip completely....

Im rating to support those who have shared their experience regarding being racially profiled. Surprisingly I did not have an encounter with security but I did start to feel suspiciously curious and uncomfortable about being followed and watched by employees. I brushed it off as me just shopping too long. the aisles are narrow and I do take waaay to long to shop, reading labels and all. Plus I was unsure and in awe of all the items so not only was I spending way too much time in there but I didnt have much in my basket to show for the time I spent there. So I didn't think much of it. And felt perhaps I was being suspicious myself.

However, when I got to the register, the check out woman was nasty to me and when I went to use my Platinum Visa Card to pay she replied Oh- I thought that was an EBT (foodstamp) card. For those who don't know, EBT cards are blue and white and looks nothing like a Visa Card that has a chip in it. I replied, no, its a visa card. And the woman just went on about her job without even apologizing for labeling me with a stereotype.

It goes to show that stereotypes aren't proven correct due to people's actions. Instead stereotypes are considered true well before the encounter and people use select situations to support their stereotypical beliefs.

I apologize to all the WOC who had to deal with profiling from this store. You...

I have been living in this neighborhood for a couple of years and this hmart is a blessing. This is a soft open, according to the flyer on the door and they generally close ~ 10.30 in the nights. Overall the location is amazing as it's right next to the subway and they have pretty all manner of things. But the size is not that large and the layout is not the most intuitive. You enter on the right, the left door is for the exit. The doors are automatic. On entering you see the veggies section, go past it for the small dairy and juices section. This leads to a space with household items for all manner of things from cheap China to shower curtains to cookers. Go past this to see Multiple ailes with specialized foods, like one for noodles, one for instant noodles, one for condiments etc ( Hurrah for roasted seaweed ). The meat section is all the way to your right. Go straight past the aisle to find the frozen section with all manner of frozen foods from dumplings to microwave dishes. The line for the counters usually start in here and they already seem to be growing in size. You pay for the items and exit. Only things I didn't like were that all items were not labelled with price, the aisles did not have any signs near them and the layout was not very intuitive. Nevertheless amazing we have a hmart here now. Keep up the...