Kroger — Local services in West Bloomfield Township

This is the worst-run grocery store I've ever been to. Rarely are carts available, and never any baskets at the entrance. Too many useless displays in the aisles obstructing shoppers. The checkout area is poorly laid out with no clear queue for self-checkouts (which are often out-of-order), and never enough lanes open. One entrance leads you right into the checkouts, and now they've started blocking the unopen lanes....stupid! The deli needs to handle customers picking up hot foods to-go ahead of shoppers stocking up for winter. The bakery has screwed up every-single-order.... we don't order from them anymore, which is a shame since Kroger generally makes good cakes.

Even though this store is adjacent to our neighborhood, most of our neighbors drive 3-4 miles to shop elsewhere.

I can't imagine how much the years of poor management has cost in sales.

9/28/19 Update 5 customers waiting for assistance in the deli area and a phone call. 1 person working, slowly, no hustle, and no help available. Customers, including myself, leaving annoyed and walking out empty-handed. WHERE IS MANAGEMENT? The manager should absolutely get out of the back office and DO SOME WORK helping customers. Run the slicer! Serve the chicken. DO SOMETHING USEFUL MANAGEMENT.

Oh, and as usual, no baskets available at the front entrances.

11/14/19 Update No baskets at either entrance. No shopping carts at the South entrance. Only 2 at the North entrance. See photos posted today.

6/20/20 Update Be advised this location is closing the bottle return at 5PM each day, in order to maintain the lowest level of service possible.

6/22/20 Update Instead of adding staff to handle the uptick in post-shutdown bottle returns, this Kroger added a dedicated recycling guard. "Lupe", on this particular day, insulted and antagonized customers, nearly to the point of inciting an assault. This person has NO business working anywhere near customers (or other humans for that matter). The recycling guard also ensures that the the machines are shut down EXACTLY at the posted time (3 hours before the store closed on this day, for no particular reason) regardless if you only have a dozen cans left to process.

Also, no baskets available at either entrance. Having Lupe insult customers is apparently more important to management than moving carts and baskets to the store entrance.

1/27/23 Still the worst run grocery store I've ever been to! Now, the narrow aisles are so crowded with displays, shoppers cannot move down the aisle or, you know SHOP! Stupid!

No produce bags to be found in the whole produce department. Another supply-chain related issue? Or just poor management again.

2:30 in the afternoon, and the line to check out is 1/2 way to the back of the store. This is insane! What was the point of adding another set of 6 self-checkout stations last year? There has never been more than one set of self-checkout stations open at the same time. Open the second aisle of self-checkouts and send one of the baggers over to monitor.

You would think "taking money from the customers" would be a tope priority for any business, but wow, this store makes it as difficult as possible.

9/10/23 Almost no produce available today. Zero cucumbers. Stupid cardboard displays everywhere, to the point that shoppers cannot even navigate a cart through the store.

Kroger has really amped up the level of blatant fraud this year. Those buy-one-get-one free tortillas? Yeah, they're not going to ring up correctly, or even on sale at all. Fruit is another area where displays are routinely and intentionally mis-marked and you will not get the advertised sale price, so pay attention...

I went to return pop cans. I had no intention of dumping the bags into the cart, only transporting the bags in the cart to the bottle return so I could reach inside the bags to pull out the bottles and cans to put them in. I was stopped at the door and told that, apparently, they do not allow you to use the carts for the pop cans or bottles. While they did make an offer to help me transport the three bags I had into the store, this does not help me when I have back issues and bending to pick up from the floor to the return causes it to flare up.

I understand with Covid going on things are a bit different but I do not understand how bottles in a trash bag in a cart (again, not dumping them into the cart still leaving them in the bag and pulling them directly from the bag to put in the return) is not allowed. It made me go from feeling like an able-bodied person to a unabled-body person. I preferred going to the Krogers because the return is right in the front but I guess from now on I'll have to go to the Meijer's because at least I can leave the bags in the cart.

When I called in about it, I was basically told there was a sign on the door, which of course I didn't see from grabbing a cart at the return cart station and taking the bags to the door. Their solution was to have their worker help but given my mother doesn't always wash out the cans and I'm certain there was at least a bottle or two probably broken, I don't want them to have to deal with it and possibly get injured. (It's one thing if it's myself, a total different thing for a worker.) And, again, it's something I should be able to do myself. It's just left me very disheartened and upset, to be honest. If I bring my own tarp and spread it in the cart would that be okay then? Or if I bring my own disinfectant? Maybe I should just bring a wagon? I'm not trying to leave the carts a mess or anything, hence why the bottles and cans would be staying in the bags until being removed to put in the return, I'm just trying to make it so I'm minimizing my pain as much as possible. Maybe next time I'm at the store I can take a look and read the sign to see what the rationale is. Maybe it has to do with limited space or something, I don't know. Given it's going to be a long time before I go back to Kroger, I guess I just won't worry about it for now.

Edit: Out of curiosity, I tried calling the Kroger at 12 Mile just to see if this was a corporate rule across the board. The lady on the phone had no idea what I was talking about. I had to explain to her the rule for the Orchard Lake store. So it sounds like this store is just made up its own rule, completely separate from any other Kroger, if my...

7/30/2018 For being in West Bloomfield, I was suprisingly disappointed with bakery customer service today. Went in to see if they sold individual bagels at the bakery at 8am. There were none, so I asked a bakery lady behind the bakery counter if they sold them fresh and she obviously who was irritated by my question told me they wouldn't be ready for another 5 minutes. I smiled and said I would wait and walked away to look for something to drink with my bagel. When I came back the same lady was pulling out a cart with bagels and filled only half of the varieties, so I guessed she would get the other half and fill the rest. She didn't say a word to me or volunteer any information on the remainder of the bagels, so I walked away to browse at some other desserts nearby so that she wouldn't feel rushed. She came back with the remaining bagels and wouldn't you know, the shelf for rhe "everything " bagels was still empty. I asked if they were going to fill the everything bagel and she just said no . Wish she would have volunteered that info when I first asked her about the bagels, but since I had already waited 10 mins, I decided to choose another variety. I then asked the lady if they had individual packages of cream cheese for the bagels. She answered with a yes. To my surprise, she didn't ask or offer me one, even though I just asked about it. So of course I asked and she acted irritated once again, and ask the kid in the back to grab me one. Customer service is very disappointing here. Maybe the employees should go through a customer service class even if they're in the back, considering they still have to encounter customers throughout the store. They are representing Kroger by wearing their uniforms. Terribly disappointed and have mentioned it in passing to others who have...