Wawa — Restaurant in Woodbury

Let me begin by saying that I am always respectful, even when I am unhappy in these situations. I hate seeing retail workers get treated like trash. I worked in retail myself for many years. My husband is a manager and many of my friends work in retail. I'm one of the people that thanked every retail worker at the height of this pandemic because I appreciate their work. I know it's hard when you're doing the best you can and people are yelling at you for things not in your control. With that being said, here is my experience at Wawa on Evergreen Ave in Woodbury this evening...

We ordered some sandwiches, drinks, snacks, and a sundae on the App for pickup. I arrived about fifteen minutes later. When I walked in my order wasn't on the Pickup shelf. Fine. I noticed my sundae and the frozen drink we ordered just sitting on the counter, melting. I asked the guy behind the counter if they were part of order number 491. After some confusion he said it was, but when I asked where the rest of my order was, he was confused. Finally, someone said my sandwiches were on another counter.

When I got to that counter I realized none of my sandwiches were bagged. They were just scattered across the counter. In addition, no could tell me where the rest of my order was. I went to get in line and after a couple minutes in line my frustration peaked. My ice cream was melting down my hand the line was barely moving, and one of the employees was just leaning against her broom chatting with an off duty employee. Finally, I just asked for a manager.

I expressed my frustration as mildly as I could. However, as I said to the manager (who happened to be the one with the broom), what is the point of ordering a pickup order if I have to literally come into the store and gather my own items. As she explained to me that they are short handed and that everyone was just trying to do the best they could, I felt like she was being condescending. It seemed like she was incensed I voiced my frustration. If there was an actual meaningful apology I didn't hear it - or any apology really.

She - I can't tell you her name since her name tag was missing - went on to explain how they all have limited time to get things done and these things had to be done every day, and again stated how shorthanded they are. She did also explain that they had gotten hit hard and my order was the last one and they were catching up. However, that was toward the end of her long, condescending explanation. Had she lead with that and asked me to wait a few minutes so someone could finish, I would've been fine. Unfortunately that isn't how it went down and I heard more about how they had other things to do.

Annoyed by her "I'm not making excuses, but..." explanations I asked her had I been a Door Dash driver would I have had to also walk through the store gathering items. She shrugged nonchalantly and said "sometimes." I told her I understand being busy with duties, but customer service is important. In hindsight, as a former manager, I probably would've been annoyed if someone said that to me. However, I'm not sorry I said it, because not once did this woman offer to actually assist me. In the time it took her to preach to me about being shorthanded and having things to accomplish, she could've jumped in and helped. Apparently the cashier - who had a steady flow of customers - was supposed to get the rest of my order ready. He started to do that while she was still babbling to me and repeating herself. She only jumped into action when a line formed and she had to ring customers.

When I asked if I could replace the ice cream since they made that FIRST for some reason, she seemed reluctant to do that for me. When I left there was no "Sorry for the inconvenience" or "Have a good day." She didn't even acknowledge me. The cashier was nice and everyone else in the store was nice. The one person who should've made me feel like a valued customer...

As nice as the remodel is, the inside atmosphere unfortunately provides an unnecessary urban vibe. I’m assuming that it was a manager in the back yelling “bullsht” and “stupid sht” about something over and over. That, paired with the oven alarm/trumpet sound going off (and being ignored by the employees) from the time I walked in, selected my meal from the deli, was rang up, waited for my food, received my food, and until I walked out, made the whole experience unpleasant. To top it off, who I believe was the manager eventually came out from the back (after he was done cursing about things) to ring me up. And when he did, he came out with his phone on his hip, blaring his music and rang me up like I wanted to listen to his jams with him. Not until my food was paid for did they start to even look at my food order and begin to make it. Luckily I only had to endure that place for about 10 minutes. The employees and management treat it like a hang-out as opposed to their job, on a regular basis. TRY TO AVOID THIS WAWA - especially with their...

I went in to wawa yesterday with my mother to get a fountain coke and as we are being rang up the employee has the audacity to ask my mom " Do white people usually wear bonnets"? One thing for sure and two things for certain this person did not even know whether my mother was Caucasian or not that is number one, number two is that I'm not going to get into a racial debate with a MAN on whether a woman can cover her hair or not. This employee has no clue whether or not she even had hair what if maybe she is going through cancer or struggling with alopecia? The ignorance and condescending tone of this man is just 100% not okay and to add fuel to the fire this a man has no hair on his head at all. Totally disrespectful! Do better WAWA and to that employee work on your view of the world cause there are bigger issues to deal with in this country then my...