Nature's Emporium — Restaurant in Burlington

Excellent quality of the food and other groceries. Great stock of supplements and personal hygiene products. I would recommend this store heartily with one significant caveat: just be prepared to bag your own groceries at the cash.

Most of their cashiers will bag your groceries as you would expect at any store where there’s no self-checkout, but a few of their cashiers simply ring everything through and you’re left to bag them yourself.

I don’t get it. With no disrespect, and I hate to sound entitled, a cashier’s role is to ring products through, charge the customer and put the groceries in a bag(s). It’s not rocket science. Since when should I have to bag my own things when I’m not being paid to do so? They’re trained for that, at least they should be, but when the customer has to do it themselves it’s very inconvenient and slows down the service for all the customers waiting in line. I expect to do my own bagging at self-service checkouts, but they don’t offer it. It’s ludicrous. Particularly when this store has only 4 cash lines, and it’s rare they’re all open at the same time.

Again, it’s not an issue with most of their cashiers. I’ve had many very good experiences. But it’s very and annoying when it happens.

Note to management: all cashiers need to be trained to bag groceries for customers, whether the customer brings their own bag or not. Otherwise, there are other high-end stores that offer similar quality products and better customer service at checkout.

Post script: I’m rather disappointed that, after posting my review over a month ago, there has been no response from management about my one small complaint about cashiers refusing to bag groceries. I shop at NE regularly and love it and have been a loyal shopper for several years, but I had the same experience just this past weekend where the same cashier just left me to bag my own purchases. I would appreciate a response from the store’s management - and some retraining of their employees - or I will be happy to take my business to Goodness Me, Whole Foods and other similar shops where I've never had this issue.

Sorry to sound petty, but really? Has anyone else...

If I wrote this review within the first few weeks of the store opening, I would have scored it higher. It is a beautiful store. It is very large and bright and fresh. It has a huge selection of products and food (although we find the prices much higher than many other competitors). For the most part the customer service is great (a few exceptions). But the reason I am writing this review now is that we are totally disappointed with the hot prepared foods. The first few weeks the hot prepared foods were amazing! We picked up food for our family 4-5 nights a week after work (around 5:00 pm). We raved about the food to people, encouraging them to try it. But after a few weeks, the quality and selection deteriorated. The first few weeks, the quality was amazing, there was awesome selection, and the food was fresh. I don't know what happened, but it fell apart in my family's opinion. We have been in probably 12 times since then as we haven't been able to buy anything. On multiple occasions, many of the food trays have what looks like scraps where 90% of the food is gone and 10% of the dried out bits remain. And this is always at 5:00 pm, prime time for fresh food to be available. In this case, if they do not have anything to replenish, they should be removing the tray as it is better to have nothing, than unappetizing scraps. Also, the selection has been really poor lately. At first there was always a couple chicken options, some beef options, some pork options, some fish options, as well as vegetarians and vegan options. Lately, the selection is much less. We are truly disappointed because we eat organic and have very busy lives and don't have time to cook dinners each night. We were very excited at first to have some delicious, organic, hot prepared food options, but now we will have to drive further out of our way to a competitor's location as we have given it at least 12 more chances and nothing...

It was my first time shopping at Nature's emporium, as I am new to the area. I have been to another natural food store in town called Goodness me and had a very pleasant experience. I entered with my infant when the woman who is designated as the greeter with her 'security theatre' table barked at me ' miss! You need hand sanitizer' I said 'that's okay I actually just used some before coming in' her voice became more panicked and aggressive and she said 'no, you have to use hand sanitizer before you go in ' I was practically blind at this point because my glasses had fogged up from my mask, I have my little one with me and I said fine and she squirted hand sanitizer in my hand and I went in. After that uncomfortable 'greeting' I really had no desire to have a leisurely shopping trip, and I quickly grabbed the items I came for and didn't bother browsing and potentially buying more. The store was practically empty and the workers there seemed sad, the whole store had a dystopian feeling even more so than most stores you visit these days. The woman at the cash was friendly and the greeter was nearby so I said to her that this was my first time at this store and her energy and attitude was very off -putting and immediately put me in a state of unease. For that reason I probably will not return to this store. Their prices are higher than most natural food stores and the experience was...