Safeway — Restaurant in Lafayette

It is very convenient to have a store this size opens 24 hours. For that I very much appreciate the efforts of all the store employees that work here.

However I had a terrible racial discrimination experience here and that is why I am giving it 1 star.

On 6/6/2022, in the morning around 11am, I stopped by to buy some water before a road trip to Yosemite. I used the self check out machine. After checking out, I thought I better use to the restroom quickly before starting the 3 hour drive. There was a white male store employee working at the self check out area. Later I learned his name was Josh. I wanted to ask Josh where the restroom was, but he was talking to a white lady, so I waited patiently, even though their conservation did not have anything to do with shopping but more a random daily chat as they seemed to know each other. They both noticed I was waiting for them to finish their conversation, so after about a minute or two the lady said goodbye and left. Josh was smiling the whole time when he was talking to the lady but once I started to talk to him his smile was all gone. That was fine; I was not expected to be treated as a pop star anyway. Josh told me where the restroom was and I was on my way. All seemed normal.

Turned out the restroom had a code lock. I asked a lady worked at the Deli department what the code was and she told me the guy worked at the self check out area should know. What the heck - that was where I started! So I went back to confront Josh. Josh acknowledged the code changed recently and he did not know what the latest combo was. The problem was he clearly DID know a code was needed, yet he sent me on my way knowing fully I would take a completely wasted walk. Maybe because I interrupted a conservation he was passionate about? That was quite unacceptable!!! I asked Josh could I speak to the store manager. Realizing I was not another customer he could bully easily, he changed his tone and said he would find someone to help me to open the door, which reflected the fact that he was fully aware what he did was not appropriate.

Later I spoke with both the store associate director Kim and the store director Tim. They were both reasonable and apologetic, and promised to conduct better employee training.

Normally I am not a picky customer. We are all human beings and people in the retail sector are working really hard to provide the service the society needs. If they make some unintentional mistakes I am very understanding and will only encourage them. But in this case I have to fight back, not so much for myself but for all the minority customers. Josh, or any other employee for that matter, needs to understand they are representing the store, they need to be professional, and treat all customers equally and respectfully. The management of the store and Safeway should emphasize that to their...

Compared to other Safeways in the "convenient" area, this one is the worst managed. My family has reported them in the past for repackaging and or selling of expired meats, lack of trained employees on corporate policies, (including blatant lying when a simple email to corporate says the policy in writing) and selling whole sections of expired foods in detail and with pictures. Even the Safeway with the lowest rating in the area, doesn't have this issue nearly as often and has adopted the "less waste" policy unlike the Lafayette Safeway. What makes this worse is that this location is a 24/7 store. 24/7 store does not mean that it should be "unmanaged" as one night supervisor explained to me in my experience.

As an example, yesterday night I went into the this safeway at 9:17 pm, 2 hours 43 minutes before the federal law dictates 8 unmarked off (policy is to mark day of meat excluding vacuum packed meats such as hamburger 30% off day of expiration) beef steaks in normal packaging must be thrown out because they are expired. I go to the person in charge at night who was just standing around in the chip aisle fiddling with animal cracker boxes and ask about the specific policy to get the steaks marked down 30% off at the register as per corporate policy. The person in charge proceeds to give an excuse that they are in charge but have no authority over any markdown sales or throwing out of products that are expired when it comes to midnight. The butcher does not come until 8 am at the earliest with the meat manager at the store I've often been told by the meat techs coming in closer to 10 am. At times when this happens with bulk meat, typically I see Safeway "hamburger" put in clearance that morning with mixed colors or an over saturated pink to the meat.

Of all the people I've met in the store in the meat section alone for the 24 years I've lived in the area, they don't check the dates on the products they buy as much as "clearance meat" disgusts them when I have asked out of pure curiosity or they have told me when I am buying clearance meat. Similar local news stories have come up with Target with baby formula and pet food being several months expired, yet people put their trust in meat and dairy products like the cheese section until they get...

This particular Safeway because it's in an upscale neighborhood, doesn't have security gates, there are sometimes actually baggers and multiple lines open (though not so much the last couple of months). What most people refuse to understand is the D.A. that charges the theft in Lafayette and Antioch are in the same County. The D.A. will not prosecute theft from either store. And the "police" in Lafayette are just County Deputies in cars and uniforms bought by Lafayette. The Sheriff has also made public statements that his department will not go after petty criminals so why do people in Antioch get treated that our Police are somehow at fault for store when they not spread all over the County like the Deputies Lafayette uses and still cant get the DA to prosecute. Why should hardworking people in Antioch be treated like we are all criminals when its a small group of people and statisticaly will actually be employees. By the way, the criminals know all this so turn your rich heads and let the thieves walk in and out of your store with County support which means no support. Good luck. Look at how nice and clean this Safeway is because it caters to wealthy people. Is there crime in Antioch (the Safeway i use the most)? Yes. But the is a very small group of people that they simply don't deal with so they treat all people in Antioch like criminals even though that store is always much busier than this one and I'm sure has a higher profit margin. They pay a security guard to stand there and talk on the phone. It's all the same County so criminals (and again, most theft in any retail environment is from employees) so a thief in Lafayette is not going to get prosecuted any more than a thief in Antioch will. Safeway clearly has discriminatory practices against communities that are diverse and working class vs the white and wealthy....