Pioneer Market — Local services in Town of Islip

If you are in or near Fair Harbor you will have to deal with the Pioneer Market - the only grocery store in town. Three things to note:

1. the prices are exorbitant, far exceeding the cost to transport goods to the island
2. the product selection is thin, and seemingly designed to be unhealthy with limited fresh produce, and very few options
3. the service is truly uncaring and inattentive - young and interested in their tasks or chatting among themselves rather than helping customers

The Pioneer Market operates an ice cream stand called Unfriendly's, which suffers from uncaring service. It seems ironic that they would choose such a well...

I will start by saying that I assume the absurdly high prices is because of seasonal markup and basic supply/demand tenets. That being said, it's pretty great. The deli counter in the back has good food and meats, coffee beans and a grinder, and half or full sour pickles in a barrel. It's basically a super fancy bodega, in that it has food, cleaning supplies, and alcohol all together. Also a fresh fruit and veg wall section. It's the only place in Fair Harbor to buy most things, so you don't have a choice. But...

I’ve never experienced customer service this bad. It was 6:40 PM on Sunday, the ice cream shop closes at 6:45. I was outside with my 3- and 5-year-old, and the worker looked us straight in the eye and closed the garage door right in our faces.

We had five minutes before closing, and she knew exactly what she was doing. My kids had been looking forward to having ice cream all day, and it was incredibly disappointing for them.

After this experience, I won’t be coming...