Ukraina Deli — Restaurant in Santa Monica

Not very friendly staff, at least not some of them. The other staff I've seen have generally been reasonably polite, but the most recent one - a young-ish lady w/ long blond hair, essentially lied to me about the time to make me cut my shopping short and leave quickly.

I certainly expect better customer treatment; which doesn't include being rudely interrupted in my shopping & nearly kicked out when it's actually still about 10 min to closing.

I came in around a quarter till 8pm & spent 2 min choosing among the boxed candy - yes: 2. entire. minutes: how terrible of me... The very second I turned toward the deli counter, the saleslady very pointedly & impatiently "asked" me if I was finally done & "urged" me to finish shopping, saying they were already about to close.

I thought this was quite odd since I knew I'd come in w/ plenty of time to get a few items & be out before closing, but was too polite to pull out my phone right in front of her to check the time. So I chose a couple of deli items in a hurry, while the saleslady's acting like this is all a giant inconvenience.

Then after everything got rung up & packed, & after I paid, & after I put everything in my bag, & after leaving the store; I pull out my iPhone - and what does it say? It's 7:55. Meaning it had been ~7:50 when that saleslady told me they were already closing. Um: they close at 8pm, & they don't shut the doors early as far as I've seen on prev. visits there; or at least they're really not supposed to.

I'm a regular customer here, & I go to a lot of trouble to get here as it's not at all close to where I live, work or study & because their closing hours are a lot earlier than other grocers. Since I work & go to school it's very difficult to manage to come here when they're open: ~15 minutes before closing is the best I can do. Despite that, I'm still always quick about it & always leave before they close. I come here almost weekly & overall I spend significant money at this very small store.

I will prob keep shopping here (due to the sheer lack of any other russian food store anywhere around), but if anyone tries to do that to me again I'm certainly not going to be too polite to pull out my phone right in front of their nose, turn the screen to them & sweetly ask 'oh, really, you're closing right now? Do you have a different time than this? Or have you changed your closing time from what's posted on your door?'

Pricing: Their deli prices are average to high: Smoked salmon (packaged) is $14 for 11oz Mackerel fish (whole, salted) $10+ Докторская колбаса - $8/lb., which seems questionably high to me, & it tastes unpleasantly over-salted.

A major issue, however, is that not a single item in the deli counters has a price tag on it; so you have to ask for the price on every item you might be interested in buying (& none of the salesladies are particularly cheerful about answering), & then try to figure out right away in front of them whether that's a good price for you. It gives the whole thing an unpleasant haggling overtone & makes you embarrassed to have to ask. & of course since it's not written down anywhere; if you forget the prices you have to keep asking about every item at every visit. Or I guess you can just accept that they're going to charge you whatever they see fit & hope you've got enough to pay your surprise-amount bill when it's presented.

Also, they're often out of many popular types & flavors of boxed candy, sometimes for weeks or months at a time: so I waste my time making multiple trips without getting what I came for. When you ask about it they kind of just say 'yeah, we don't have anymore' (in russian); nothing about when (or if) the products will ever be there again: so you don't, u know, waste endless trips trying to buy it, like I've ended up doing. Just a kind of perpetual attitude of indifference, like they can do just fine without all of their customers.

Take from this what you will. But I think the fact that they're the only Russian food grocer in the entire Westside is the ONLY thing keeping them...

A small isle of Ukraine in the heart of Santa Monica :) Come here to experience some ethnic spirit and to get some really delicious pickles and sausages! Indeed, american sausages and pickles are not at all like Russian/Ukrainian. You have to taste them to understand the difference. In fact, if you ask, the staff would be happy to cut you a little piece of any deli they have, so that you could choose. The staff are very polite and cheerful, even though they may look a bit grumpy at first - this is just a national trait of the russian character. All you have to do is to be polite yourself, tell them a story, and they would be your best friends! ;) Once you become friends, they would always tell you whether the food you are choosing is fresh or not really and when they are expecting new deliveries or what are their own favorite products. This is truly a very specific experience of shopping you would never get at Vons or...

Well,dear Ukrainians or ppl who just want to try some delicious ukrainian food please avoid this place because there is nothing ukrainian there,well ,maybe just Roshen candy lol and few spices, instead you will find terrible service from unhappy cashier,only russian or belarus products,almost empty shelves,calendars with russian kings,socks and other russian things which shouldn't be in product store at all,it looked like old small store in grandma village,smell is terrible there,smelled like toilet,from products were fish salted I guess but it didn't look good and the rest just cookies,candies oh yes,you can find Kvas there and dark bread that's it,very poor choice of products,waste of time and money.This place described as ukrainian, no, it is a huge lie,it is russian,very dissapointed,do not...