Sainsbury's is coming to Stroud Green Road - Woody's is going!

ADGS

Waterstone's website is best of all, you can get points on your Nectar *and* your Waterstone's card for the same purchase!
Also, perhaps more generally useful, Amazon.
(I do not work for these firms either, though I did once do some freelance for Amazon years ago)

Emma

I don't really know what I'm meant to do with my Nectar points now I have them, mind.

krappyrubsnif

I stored up about a zillion useless Tesco points and couldn't figure out what to do with them. I wanted to put them towards cheaper flights. But it all seemed so complex. So I chucked it away.

WillM

Just visited the new Sainsburys.

Positives:
* Whilst there are a few things they have that Tescos don't (soft drinks, sandwiches, and I *think* higher-end wines), there are few things Tescos have that they don't. Given the different sizes of store, I see this as a positive
* A lot better presented
* Polite and helpful staff (in particular relative to Tescos)
* Smelled nice
* There's a strollability to the store - it's relaxing, and even when you have got what you want, you want to check out what they have. Big difference to the stress of Tescos

Negatives:
* Already have a leaky roof
* Narrow aisles will be hell when it starts filling up
* I think they're going to find it difficult to keep it looking nice when it gets busy - whilst there's a broad range of products, there isn't much of any one product.

I'll carry on going there for the next few weeks to see how it turns out. For now I think they have the edge for most kind of food shopping trips.

Arkady

Agree with all of your comments Will. The manager was having a bit of a stress about the roof. Very polite staff.

ADGS

Emma - once you have 500, you can pay £2.50 towards a Sainsbury's shop with them. There are various other fancier options with more, all explained on the website.

KRS: Tesco send me my points quarterly in the form of Tesco vouchers at the rate of a penny a point. I know they can be converted at a better exchange rate for holidays and such, but the vouchers have always seemed plenty useful to me.

Ali

The loyalty cards are set up to confuse which is evident from the previous comments. Collecting points: Tescos £1 = 1pt Nectar £1 = 2pt Spending Tescos 500 pts = £5 Nectar 500pts =£2.50 but as you accrue at the rate of 2 per pound it is the same. Tesco’s can get better value as they have a multiple of 4 when not spent in the shop ie 500 =£20 and it is quite easy to spend them online to get money off vouchers etc. If you have a Tesco’s credit card you get an additional 1 for every £2 spent. If you reuse a bag you get twice as much at Tesco ie 1 Clubcard pt while at Sainsbury’s you get 1 Nectar point. Clucard also lets you get Airmiles which is something which I have never understood really as Tax is such a high part of the flights cost it doesn’t make much difference. So I guess the real question is how much is the “better” environment in Sainsbury’s worth ? Why doesn’t someone do a weekly shop in both and compare? I fully expect Tesco’s to do this and have a trolley sitting on the way into the store with the Sainsbury’s shop pointing out how much more expensive it will

miss annie

They'd be better occupied putting their own house in order than pointing out any inadequacies that the sparkly new Sainsburys might have.

Emma

Which, since they haven't actually done that, is rather a moot point.

Four Eyes

Our <a href="http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/sol/storelocator/storelocator_landing.jsp;SOLSESSIONID=MQPFSQpxxTNJVhfhml1wTL3qPxLxNDn3R1vKvFJL3QzSvhmxrQNp!1682198075!-196528569?bmForm=stores_main_search&bmFormID=1284558693853&bmUID=1284558693853&bmIsForm=true&bmPrevTemplate=/sol/storelocator/storelocator_landing.jsp&bmText=search_string_field&search_string_field=N4+3EJ&bmHidden=notifysearchcontroller&notifysearchcontroller=fromsrchmechnsm&bmSubmit=Go&bmHidden=isJavascriptEnabled&isJavascriptEnabled=true&redirectto=mapView">Shiny New Sainsbury's</a> has appeared on the Sainsbury's Store Locator today. Except it's called Sainbury's Crouch Hill and it's on Victoria Road apparently?!

WillM

Four Eyes - you're entirely right, that's the one thing I forgot to mention. Quite silly.

tosscat

It smelled like burned plastic when we went in there, and are not the plethora of staff just an opening gimmick? (I got asked three times whether I wanted a nectar card by three different people.)

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tricky

I wanted to pop in this morning to get something for breakfast on the way to work only to find I couldn't get in the shop due to an interminable photocall with ribbon and small children. Customers already inside couldn't get out. Eventually got in, noticed the funny smell and left again.

Was sadly hoping there might be something to welcome the locals in - coffee and a muffin? Oh well.

I miss Woody's. But did notice Tesco's wasn't half as busy as usual at around 7pm.

crouchend tiger

"The manager (bald guy with glasses?) was really stressing out and frantically directing staff to get the shelves filled up."

Hello, Tesco? Hello?

Spent

Its a supermarket - people need to buy food to live. End of

Ali

It is a small branded Convenience store

miss annie

End of what?

Four Eyes

Called in last night after work and was a bit underwhelmed I must say.
The manager seemed to be following me round the shop and every time I took something off the shelves he was magically behind me replacing the stock with an identical product.

Unfortnately it didn't seem to me to be much competition to Tesco. As mentioned by others it's just a convenience store really; somewhere you pick up something for dinner on the way home or pop in to buy something you've forgotten to buy somewhere else. The only mental price comparison I made in my head was the Heinz beans were about 20p more expensive than in Tesco.

On the plus side there was no queue, 4 self service checkouts (the same amount that are usually working in Tesco) and no queue at the cash machine which unlike most prints out mini-statements for you.

As it has the same opening hours as Tesco I can only really see it getting busy on Sundays when Tesco is shut.

ActionVerb

Has anyone done their main food shop at Woody's prior to its closure? For me, it was always a place for houmus, olives and some bread. The Sainsbury's is working on the same principle - only I presume cheaper than the Nisa at FP, and with a much better product range. Oh and re: manager following peopel round - the same thing was going on at the Nisa just after it opened, and there's still a couple of people too many just seem to be hanging round (at the Nisa) and watching. I expect he's just a bit excited, that's all.

nik61

No Sandwiches, fine otherwise

Ali

I was watching the food show last night on Ch4 as was surprised at the weekly shop item. As expected it had Waitrose as most expensive, Asda as cheapest by about £5 over a £40 spend. What surprised me was that Sainsbury’s was second cheapest at a couple of pounds cheaper than Tesco’s. The items included were all branded etc. Now that Woody’s is gone and so has it’s dips I think I will need to do a taste test on the Humus between Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s. I will also keep using the Stroud Green Convenience Store (ex Cost Cutter for those that don’t read signs!). At least I think the guys in there directly own the business and need support now they are stuck in the middle. They also do Turkish bread and are open longer. Trips to Green Lanes to stock up on the goodie I guess is now back on the Agenda. Might have to combine that with a try out of the pubs across there

miss annie

Depends what you want from your houmous, I prefer Sainsburys version to Tesco as it has a more coarse texture, lovely for dipping chicory leaves into. Not massively different tastewise. Stand out winner is M&S spicy red pepper houmous with chilli. Yum!

gardener-joe

Popped in today. I was underwhelmed, although it is a bright and cheerful store.

Pretty poor selection of fruit and vegetables and bagged salad items. Woody's was ace for fruit vegetables. Not so many Sainsbury's branded items as I wanted ... and why all that booze?

I was asked to use the self-serve rather than the checkout. For those of us who don't see too well, it is a bit stressy to be put on the spot to explain your check-out strategy.

How come a small store like the Londis on Stapleton Hall seems to be able to supply a supermarket range, and this one doesn't?

Perhaps it is too soon to tell ...

andy

"I was underwhelmed" Love it. It's a Sainsburys Local, not a Brunelleschi chapel. Did you see the fresco on the back wall (by the croissants) depicting the life of St Peter? I thought it a clumsy pastiche at best.

miss annie

The fresco of St. Peter should be near the fish section really. St Honore for baked goods.

Tallboy

I like it. More than I was expecting. Much better range than its predecessor.

David

I was looking forward to a reasonable Pino for a fiver. Unfortunately not there unlike the bigger stores. That was kind of my main reason for wanting it above Woody's.

krappyrubsnif

Bring back Woody's!

Four Eyes

@Andy. Yes I too was indeed 'underwhelmed'. There's been so much eager anticipation for months about this Sainsbury's I was expecting to see Jesus himself on the checkout.