Ocean State Job Lot — Local services in South Kingstown

Clean store, helpful staff and the morale seems pretty good. More and more, I ask staff about product and am not disappointed. Most of the product is pretty decent, and like Benny's they do a fair amount of seasonal product.

TLDR just an engineer venting... The one deterrent that is always present is the burden of navigating if they are even moderatly busy. The parking lot is the sloped and undersized, always challenging and time consuming. Not completely their fault, but perhaps the giant and barely used carriage return could be moved further away from the entrance where it really makes sense! The main curb cut encourages all in and out traffic in one spot requiring immediate slow navigating and traffic conflicts on route 108. I would think closing it and forcing people to enter elsewhere would encourage faster parking in the outer rows and less struggle. This store takes a long time and sometimes I skip it when the parking lot has more than a few cars. It's a cramped store as it is, and seeing more than a few cars just means a slow journey and a long wait at the registers. It's too bad they don't have some sort of lower level entrance with an elevator where Benny's auto bay was. There's abundant and unused parking to the north, but it's an entire story down and moving carriages to and from involves both a steep hill and sharing space with traffic. Some smart parking lot designer should be able to do something affordable to make this less scary for the abundant older population I see in the store! Would it pay off? That would be a fun...

Terrible experience!! Came in for water shoes— we live here in the summer, my sister year round. No line, two people open. Seemed to be two managers at the front, one at customer service, quite frankly should have got her name. I go to the next open register, just trying to check out. She comes over and says- I am using this register don’t touch to the cashier. He says okay. So I just look at my daughter and say okay let’s try the other one. She acts as if we aren’t even there… we go to the next one. She moves there with this customer and starts doing whatever she is doing. I finally say excuse me (to the three people working there) “where can I go to check out!” & one lady who is just sitting around says “why don’t you go to the red line.” I said “I ALREADY DID!!” And she just glares at me. So rude. The cashier was very kind he seemed like he was just in high school. Needless to say, I AM NOT RETURNING!! Luckily I don’t live here year round and can do my business elsewhere. Also, my dad laughed when I told him, because he came earlier and asked them for sugar. Like regular sugar. The woman’s response was “We don’t and never have sold it!!!” In a rude manner. My dad is very nice and just reccomended maybe they should since they sell a lot of other baking needs. I couldn’t believe he had dealt with them earlier. Yes it’s busy at times but if someone is being kind, and following the rules, it can’t hurt to be nice or just smile if you don’t want...

Very often Ocean State Job Lots have many windows and have a vintage signage reminiscent of the ol' Filene's Basement in Downtown Crossing. This one is not your traditional Job Lot, looking more like a municipal dark brown bricked turtle that could withstand the most recent wind storm that left so many without power.

So, if you are looking for this Job Lot, look for the sign and then look for a windowless brown brick building.

Oh, but once you in, once you go in, it is entirely different. It has the feeling of the other Job Lots like you are looking amongst the various trinkets and thingamajigs for the treasure you want to buy. An old school experience from the somewhat fake facades of common retail stores today.

Gary was a wonderful employee who was able to assist me in finding out if they carried Paleo Flour Mix from Bob's Red Mill, they didn't, but they had 100 other items that were good for cooking either way.

A tip, make sure to check a few other Job Lots because after their 40% off the entire store, all 100+ stores, they are gonna run out of some inventory.

Thanks, y'all. Hope...