Food Lion — Local services in Portsmouth

Worked at this store for about 10 years. Started as a center-store grocery stocker and moved on to managing the Frozen Food department before leaving in early 2017.

What you can expect if you shop here:

Poor customer service and unprofessionalism provided by antisocial cashiers and stockers who are not interested in doing anything beyond the absolute bare minimum.

Long lines, the front-end is often underhanded during peak hours.

A messy store, this can partly be blamed on the area this store is located in, along with the low-skilled, unenthused workers comes equally shady and careless customers. (Note the candy bars and health products in lock boxes, you won't see this at every Food Lion.)

The produce section in particular is among the worst when it comes to Food Lion. More than once when I've stopped to pick up some salad greens or berries/grapes, the shelves have either been empty or has stock that should be taken off the shelf. (Grapes that have clearly been dug into by other customers.)

There are a few genuinely good people who work here, most of them tend to work first shift. Avoid shopping here in the afternoon if possible, especially if...

This place is ghetto, rude and rarely keeps things stocked up. Plus they refuse to add automatic checkout, which is annoying since they also refuse to fill up the cash registers with employees. AND to top it all off, I have to go to a longer register with a backed up line because they suddenly implemented a policy where a cashier cannot serve their family member...even though I'm not a family member of that particular cashier, just a roommate. Additionally, they don't seem to do anything about homeless people peddling outside the store. I tolerated all of it for my roommate but since she cannot provide me with consumer service, I have no reason to keep my complaints quiet. All and all, it's poor consumer service, I'll definitely use the one in Chesapeake from now on.

LEGAL NOTICE: It is illegal to retaliate against someone for posting an honest review of a business under the Consumer Review Fairness Act, so stay in your lane, hood...

Yesterday, a Monday around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I stopped into this Food Lion location to pick up one item. I expected it to be a little busy there, but it seemed like they decided to shut down all of their registers at the same time while they changed shifts. They had one lane open, and that lane was full service. That line was backed up with customers with full shopping carts. No express lane. I left without making my purchase.

It has become increasing difficult lately for me to shop at a Food Lion store in this area without running into an issue. This makes it inconvenient for me personally since this chain of supermarkets are the only stores convenient to where I live. I have even contacted their corporate office in North Carolina pertaining to some of these issues, and now I believe that the corporate management is where many of these...