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

MHP

I'm personally very pleased Sainsbury's is coming to SGR. I know it is a chain and not an independent...but lets face it, if it were not a chain it would highly likely be...or end up being yet another "Pound" type discount store - we have enough of these already. At least Sainsbury's has standards, hopefully a free cash machine and will give Tesco a run for its money. I'm looking forward to seeing the bright orange sign already!

ADGS

I'm going to kick myself for saying this, because the charm is that there's almost never a queue, but there's also a free cash machine in the Post Office. And yet even when that and the Tesco one are both available, I still see people two minutes' walk away paying £2 to get at their own money. Madness.

Tallboy

@ Miss Annie. They also sell Borders chocolate gingers in Tesco. Saw them yesterday.

miss annie

Ooooo thank you, I'll pop along and nab some tonight.

Ian

Boarding has gone around Woody's - the Sainsbury's builders have moved in.

markpack

Who am I to let the side down? Oatcakes email sent off.

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Ian

Spoke to the shopfitters this morning. They reckoned it will take two months. I was a bit surprised as I thought that the are usually brutally quick but the door was open and I saw they are taking the whole building apart inside.

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crouchend tiger

As usual, there was no stock on the shelves when I went into Tesco this morning, but as an added special touch, customers had to wade through a pool of stagnant water covering an entire aisle.

Tesco Stroud Green - your day of reckoning is coming!

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Alex

I joined in and lobbied for a full range of cut-price Basics products, though I don't hold out much hope. Logically they would need to since the Tesco does provide the Value range. (Incidentally, the Sainsburys Basics products contain fantastic [self-denigrating straplines](http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5387121241) e.g. on the apples "funny shapes and sizes", or on the fish pie "not much fish, plenty of potato". The idea presumably being to deter the non-cash-strapped from trading down.) I also mentioned oatcakes.

ActionVerb

@misscara there will be a free cashpoint at the front, standard on all Sainsbury Locals.

Siolae

Sainsbury's - can't wait! Today's Tesco adventure: fight way round through aisles strewn with dumped trolleys, baskets etc; queue for 20 minutes for a till; get over charged cos the checkout staff is waving out the window at boyfriend so doesn't notice she has put one item through twice; queue for further 15 minutes for refund at customer services with increasingly nervous 8 year old due to very strange (both behaviour and smell) man behind us; obtain refund; go to exit then begin packing shopping into own trolley until am approached by security demanding to know if I have paid for it and want to see receipt - because obviously most shoplifters blatantly try to pack a family shop in full view of tills / security.

checkski

Heartfelt agreement, Siolae. My experience has occasionally been so bad that I have accepted the invitation on the receipt to tell them about it, on www.tescocomments.com.
For the third time, a cashier has chosen to ignore my request for two bag points, and given me one. A difference of one penny, which I would have immediately forgiven, if given a simple apology. Instead of which, defensive bluster, as usual.
Duty manager couldn't have cared less. ordered minion to give extra point. Huge puddles everywhere, on a Sunday pm. One, near us, at Customer Services. I pointed this out - someome was, unknowingly standing in it. No warning notice. It's been like this for years. 'Yes,' said manager, without interest, 'Drains', and walked off, making no effort to do anything about it.
Minion handed me the corrected receipt, without even looking at me, laughing with friends. I stared at her. 'Yes?' she asked. My response was bitter: 'No thank you? No apology?' She was incredulous. What had it got to do with her?
Most of the managers, and about half of the staff, are really nice, and try to be helpful. The others are a disgrace.

lis

believe this if you will - my worst (of many) experience with Tesco's was having to point out to a checkout person (despite the atrocious smell) that there was an actual human poo (no really) in the aisle that was being walked through the store....

Emma

@checkski - what an arrogant person you are. Why should a low-wage person give a toss about your one clubcard point? Especially when you're being massively rude to them. What a pathetic sense of entitlement. One extra clubcard point, that you kick up a fuss about, (and hold up a queue for, self-righteously) and then you expect her to apologise for it. Christ.

checkski

Me, arrogant? Rude? Time-wasting? Self-righteous? I suggest you look in a mirror, Emma. Or are you perhaps a Tesco's cashier? You certainly behave like one. Low pay means you should behave oafishly, does it? If you're not one, you'd feel at home with some of the shite employed by Tesco's. Thank God for the decent staff, who, as I said before, are in the majority. I only wish they could do something about the others.

miss annie

@Emma
The reason they should 'give a toss' is because it is their job!

ADGS

Seriously, who by this stage hasn't worked out that the way to correct (admittedly frequent) underawarding of bag reuse points is to put them on yourself next time you use a self-service till?

Tallboy

I'm with Checkski on this one. It might only be a penny, but it's endemic of their "sod you" attitude to customers. If the check out staff are going to chide me for not bringing my own shopping bag and having to use the plastic ones (which they have) then they can at least reward me when i do make the effort. It's not rocket science.

Emma

Tbh, I've never come across a "sod you" attitude to the customers, I like the staff in Tescos.

Maybe I've been lucky, or maybe the 1p point isn't as big a deal to me as to others. I've more often seen customers barely acknowledge the staff, and if they do it's only to complain about things that just don't even register on my radar. I have to say that hearing about people treating cashiers and the like badly is something that really gets my goat (and note, I'm talking about being rude rather than simply asking for an issue to be resolved).

I mean, obviously if there's human poo in an aisle, complain vociferously, but I can't muster the energy to care about 1p, and certainly can't see the justification for being rude to someone and calling the manager over about it. But judging from the general outrage on this board, I am obviously in the minority on this!

andy

Crikey chaps. Tough weekends? Given the scale of the question at hand, it's perhaps not worth the outrage.

Bridget

They were probably laughing at the rude red faced miser at the till.

So would I.

The staff are lovely at Tesco, treat people how you would like to be treated. If you smile you will usually get a smile back, treat people with respect and you will get it back.

A lot of people treat the staff really rudely there and I guess you are one of those people.

Get over yourself.

ADGS

"treat people with respect and you will get it back" - a charmingly optimistic idea, but sadly not one which survives much contact with reality. The reason for not being supercilious with shop staff is not that it makes them any less likely to be useless or rude themselves; it's just that it stops you from looking like a tool yourself.

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N4Matt

From a personal point of view, I can't stand the Stroud Green branch of Tesco and for many years I have, by and large, gone out of my way to avoid it.

While some of the staff are very pleasant and professional, the unpleasant and unhelpful ones make customers feel like they are wasting their time and perhaps interrupting their day. Plus I have found the place to be dirty, disorganised and understaffed.

I would rather go up to Crocuh End and use the Tesco there, or the Budgen or the Waitrose - the difference between these stores and the one on SGR is huge.

miss annie

I cannot face going into that dirty, badly managed Tesco full of mouldy produce any more - it's like the supermarkets used to be in Prague and other ex communist countries. The queues are like something out of Dante most days too.
If I want a well stocked supermarket I favour Morrisons, or Sainsburys in Green Lanes, both have a wide selection of fresh produce and a good butchers counter. Crouch End is a must for the greengrocers - which I'm always banging on about - and Dunn's for a cream cake as a Saturday teatime treat.

Beek

What about Tesco SGR at night, when they've turned off every other ceiling light (probably a good thing environmentally) but the grim dim interior, plus ransacked shelves, oh it's horrid. Then there are no tills open and you have to join the enormous queue for scan and pack with just the security guard to manage everything, it's sooooo strange and eerie.

miss annie

Dear lord! I'm so pleased i've never been in then. It's bad enough in daylight.