Wegmans — Local services in Virginia Beach

Wegmans is located along Virginia Beach Blvd., just west of the intersection with Independence Blvd. You can see the sign for Wegmans along the road. They also have their own parking garage next to the building. My most recent visit here was on November 20, 2019.

I'll start with my first visit, which actually didn't last too long. My first visit here was in April 2019 during the weekend when they first opened. First, parking was definitely scarce and they had police and others directing traffic due to how busy it was. After parking, we made our way in, but it felt more like going into a theme park on an extremely busy day. You were literally bumping into everyone and everything just to get around, so we didn't stay too long. However, we were able to check out various products available here and did end up purchasing a some items that day. The lines at the registers were well into the shopping aisles, with every single register open too. It took about 15 to 20 minutes waiting to check out that day. We waited a while to come back when some of the "newness" of the place faded.

Fast forward to November 20, 2019. We came back then after having dinner in the Town Center area. We figured that it wouldn't be as crazy as it was that opening weekend. This was definitely the case. We were able to walk around the store much more easily. We made our way around the majority of the store and got more stuff in this visit as well. This was more like an experience that I would expect at a grocery store. The staff were throughout the store and were ready to help if needed. They have brand name items, as well as their own private label items. We did get some of their private label items instead of the name brand to try out. The items we did get and try were pretty much the same thing, but cheaper. After completing our shopping, we made it to one of the open registers and there was only one other person in front of us this time.

Here are some overall observations I have seen in every visit here so far. Staff are readily available in each section to help you if you are looking for something in particular. The store is very large in size when compared to other grocery stores. They tend to have a wider selection of varieties of items that I haven't been able to find at other stores as well. They have several hot food options and even a restaurant. Pricing is actually pretty good here as well, and is quite competitive with the superstores in the area too. On the outside, if you are parked on the second level of the parking garage, they also have a cart escalator that you can use to get the cart up to the second floor.

Overall, Wegmans is a solid grocery store and much more. This is the first Wegmans I have ever visited, as I didn't even know it was a thing until hearing from others that it was coming to the area. If you are in the Town Center area and looking for groceries, this is a great place to go. I would just try to go during the week, rather than during a weekend since it tends to be much busier on...

UPDATE: Store is very over priced (some items 33% mark up over Kroger and FL sometimes over 50%) and charges prime level pricing for their beef, produce was hit or miss. I’m keeping this at two stars because the inside is nice and the staff are friendly.

Cancelled instacart delivery subscription after finding out the in-store prices are massively lower than instacart pricing and will not revisit a Wegmans again.

Original 3 star review:

I've been to this location three times now and sampled produce, meats, cheeses, packaged meals, "fresh" pasta, pizza, and I think I had a burger and also bought some wine and beer. The wine selection is pretty extensive in comparison to other local grocery stores, they had a limited reserve bottle of Chianti that I didn't think they would which also came out to $40 that I didn't notice on my first time through (suprised me that it cost that much at a grocery store, typically I use chianti only for cooking but will be drinking this one at some point). They have great beer selection including some Hawaiian beers that I really like so that's cool too. Prepackaged meals can be bought which I enjoyed most of mine, you can use the family packs for dinners as a single person and their "ez meals" for lunches. Came out to about $7-$9 a meal (~$20 a day) for the ones I bought. The only downside was that they had some "chipotle corn cakes" in their jerk chicken packaged meals that tasted heavily of fish so I threw those out and I had 3 of them because I love jerk chicken and they all tasted like fish so I don't think it was just the one. Major downsides of the location is how crazy it was, I have never in 20 years seen any grocery store so full that it was likely over capacity and that was what it has been like 2 out of 3 times, I came in at like 9 once and it was not too bad. Took me 2 hours to get in and pick up packaged meals and check out and about 20 minutes to find parking. They also are still out of their rewards cards for some reason, and the app forces you to call a separate company at a 1800 number to try to get one assigned which is really lame. Their fresh pasta is nothing to write home about and the angel hair is smashed from transporting it so it boils as one huge dumpling if you don't cut the smashed end off. Their pasta sauces they offer are lack luster and not worth it for me, it's cheaper to buy the cream and cheese that's 5 feet away and you'll get better flavor as their alfredo tastes like a conceptualized black hole of flavor. Pizza was pretty good. Overall their prices when compared to Kroger were about $0.10 lower on prepackaged items so that shows you who they're competing against. Their fruit packs and orange juice is ridiculously expensive. For a quarter gallon of their "cold pressed juice" I think it was more that it would cost to buy a gallon (maybe two) of simply orange juice. There's a train that goes around parts of the store that's pretty...

Management please read!! :) I’m leaving a neutral 3 because the store itself is great and most of the staff is also great. There were 2 employees in produce today that went above and beyond to help me but I think it needs to be said that Willie is the worst employee I think I’ve ever seen in any establishment I've ever entered. I always greet the cashiers will a hello and a smile and asking how their day is if they don’t beat me to it. The first time I went through Willie’s line (and the last) I walked up and did the normal greeting only to be ignored. I asked him a question about the membership to once again be ignored. I watched as he very aggressively bagged my items. I shop through Instacart and the only low rating I have ever received was the day Willie bagged my items. He quite literally threw the eggs in and stuffed heavy items on top I can only imagine what a mess I delivered to the customer that they left me only 1 star. He sighed and grunted the whole time like he hated his job. Didn’t even bother to read my total aloud. This doesn’t only reflect on me and my job but it reflects on Wegmans as a company. His station that day was the only one that didn’t have a line. I have seen him only once since then and once again noticed that his line was the only one not full of customers waiting to check out. He was on his phone while checking out one customer I noticed from a different line. I saw multiple customers purposefully walk past his empty station even though his was the first one and the one people walk by first! Even overhead someone say “no don’t go to his line, we have time we can wait.” There’s a reason his line is emptier than the others. He has a horrible attitude. He has horrible bagging skills. He overall gives very bad energy. I at all costs avoid this person when I am there. Please management take this into actual consideration. He is causing a bad experience for many people and it’s so memorable that they choose to avoid him just as I have. Otherwise though Wegmans is a great store and I wish I got the names of the employees that helped me in the produce, they were so...