Safeway

This is by far the worst Safeway I’ve been to yet and I thought the one I went to the other week was bad, but the SHITTY SERVICE from this location takes the gold.
There was literally THREE women working in the deli and only 1 person was being helped and the two old hags working there basically ignored me, the larger one finally said she would be right with me after standing there for 3 min unnoticed, finally the younger gal in training comes to help me, finally, thank gosh for her because I was on my way to work just trying to get a snack before hand, anyways she finally helps me and is really nice about it so go her!
Then I got to sit down and start eating my corn dog and it’s just completely inedible and chewy because it was burnt. Then went to exchange it and get attitude about wanting to actually get what I paid for, food to eat. The old old lady working was honestly quite rude until her friend or boyfriend came up and she starts chatting about presents. Like are you kidding me, you won’t stop slicing cheese to help a customer, but you’ll stop to go chat with your boyfriend or man friend ?? And my girl friend had a REALLY NEGATIVE experience here, she was spoken to rudely by the cashier about her head phones being in which weren’t really on, and he comments and tells her it’s rude to have your head phones in when someone’s trying to talk to you, hello ?? She responded when you asked how’s it going ?? And she was asked out and took her money else where which I do not blame her. Service here is just shitty. I will continue to support Fred Meyers that’s not even 3 min up the road. Better and larger store and for having more on their plate, WAYYYYY BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I shop here but to be honest, I tend to travel further out to Fred Meyers or Target most of the time. I am not one to disrespect hard working people but this place has really tested my will. I have been yelled at to move out of the way by the employees when I was shopping. The aisles are hard to go down when there is another person in the aisle. My mother is in a wheelchair and has a hard time getting things down from the shelves and the store employees are never quick or happy to assist.
On one occasion last week, I went in to ask information about the gift card program where they can cash out the remaining balances on gift cards. One of the cashiers, her name was Cookie, was rude to me. She yelled at me to come forward, I was very taken aback. When I asked her for more information, she glared at me and told me the only time they could do it was around 3pm and I had to have a visa gift card. She then told me to go away and hid her name badge. I was able to see it because I read her name badge after she yelled at me.
Unfortunately, these incidents happen far too often and really make it hard to want to shop here.

This is the absolute worst grocery store I’ve ever been to. The cashiers are so rude. I placed by basket on the conveyer at checkout because my hands were full, and the cashier yelled at me and told me it wasn’t their job and there’s no room for baskets behind his counter. All he had to do was tell me politely that they don’t take baskets (btw, what??) at checkout, and to put it somewhere else. Parking is atrocious, the store always looks dirty, and everyone is grumpy. Take your business someplace else!

Only gets one star since there are black people around it.haha. You could have guessed there would be simce there is a Popeyes across the street.
This safeway is kind of grungy. The lights didn’t work and it is kind of crowded for a grocery store. There is no space between the entrance and some of aisles. Products are immediately thrown at you here.
The parking lot looks inviting. There are trees lining the the parking spaces aisles, columns. It is kinda homely here since the parking lot is quaint.
There is, however, miscellaneous trash around.

I’d rather not leave another 1 star review for any place, but I think in some cases people need to be warned.
This Safeway pharmacy delayed my Rx twice for no apparent reason except forgetfulness, won’t answer their phone, and never let me know when my Rx was ready. This Rx is dangerous for me to go without — a fairly common situation for many people. I am suffering due to the gap and would’ve been fine if they’d just done their jobs right.
Based on the unprofessionalism I saw in this ‘once in a lifetime’ experience with them, I wouldn’t trust them to get the Rx right, not make mistakes such as confusing similar meds, etc. I highly advise anyone to avoid them unless major changes are made (note the store’s 2 star overall average).

This Safeway is my local neighborhood Safeway and I frequent this store nearly everyday of the week. This is also where I get all of my medication.
The pharmacy: I have never had any problems that are pharmacy related. Maybe insurance related problems but never pharmacy issues. The people who work there are professional, nice and they always go the extra mile for me whenever I have a problem that they can help me with! They always have my medication ready gor pick up and when I screw up and forget to call one in, they will always fix my mess up and have it ready in less than a hour. I have noticed that they take a lot of abuse from customers that have insurance problems, but thats not their fault!
The grocery store: they always have what I need. They have what I need up until 11pm which is when they close. I suspect its the neighborhood that its in and I honestly cant blame them because of all the riff raff that frequent this location. I dont buy meat there because Gartners is a short trip up Sandy Blvd but they always have everything else I need from fresh produce to snacks and everything else in between…
If there was something I’d have to complain about I would have to say that the parking lot sucks but every grocery stores parking lot is crap in North Portland…
Thank you for having what I need Safeway!

You really deserve no stars, but that’s not an option. Twice in this just started month I’ve came home not happy with your store. I hate how everytime I need something y’all pass the buck wtf does nobody work there at all. The management are the worse about standing around not helping and when you ask they’re like yeah you can ask the girl at the register to do that, after I’ve already waited in line to be told I need your assistance. Fuck your store I nor anyone on my block will shop there again. Luckily there’s a Fred myers only .1 more miles away. Ugh

This store doesn’t even deserve one star, but I digress.

I went here over the weekend to get a money order and was standing at the Money Services counter for quite some time. There was an employee taking inventory in the area, and I asked him if the Money Services area was open today. The following conversation is what took place:
Employee: «Yeah, you just gotta wait til she see you. You gotta stand in front of the camera.»
Me: «Who is ‘she’?»
Employee: «The woman in the back room.»
Me: «Can you go get her and let her know there is a customer here?»
Employee: «Nah, I be busy.»
I told him he was terrible at customer service, and I reached my hand to wave at the two-​way mirror which I assumed the female employee was behind. She came out of the room about 30 seconds later and we had this conversation:
Female Employee: «Whatchu need?»
Me: «Well, I’d like to get a money order,» and I removed my card from my wallet.
Female Employee: «Nuh uh, you gotta have cash at Safeway.» Then the phone rang and she answered it as I was talking to her. After she hung up:
Me: «Man, I’m going to Fred Meyer. This whole store is terrible at customer service.»
Female Employee: «Good,» as if it were some accomplishment to be bad at your job but still continue working there to get paid.
I will never go back to this location, and I do hope it closes down soon.

Wish I could give zero stars. Three registers open… which was fine because there were no lines. Our cashier was texting the whole time including the 3 minutes it took him to even acknowledge us standing there. On the other register was the manager who was yelling to the third cashier about «gangster sh*t». He literally said «gangster sh*t» (obviously without the *). Also, our cashier accused us of not giving him one of our drinks… when the receipt printed I pointed out the two drinks. Never again.

Of all the Safeway stores in N/​NE this is my least favorite for several reasons:
PARKING — this lot itself is cramped and does not flow well. And trying to exit the lot onto either MLK or Ainsworth can be incredibly frustrating much of the time.
DELI — the hot food always looks lukewarm like it’s been sitting there for hours and there are always trays that have not been refilled (during peak and off-​peak times). And the refrigerated deli food frequently looks crusted over (for example the macaroni and the potato salads). Very unappealing for sure. The one time that I actually tried to get food at the deli, the customer service was worse than sub-​par. I actually had such an unpleasant experience that I asked to speak with a manager (Note: This was the first time I have ever complained about service at a grocery store… it was that bad!!!)
QUALITY — The produce section is hit-​or-​miss, sometimes the produce is great, but sometimes the vegetables are wilted and the fruit had bruised and/​or soft spots. And be careful buying packaged berries, several times I’ve seen strawberries and blueberries with mold, ewwww!
SERVICE — I have actually had consistently GOOD service here. Sometimes the lines move a little slow, but the cashiers are always really nice :)
SELF-​CHECKOUT — Unfortunately they seem to have frequent issues with their equipment here. On several occasions one or more of the checkout kiosks have been out-​of-​service or being repaired.

Hate this place. Long lines, dirty atmosphere, terrible parking, awful selection. It’s honestly like they only stock the shittiest products they can get their hands on. But hey let’s protest a trader joes in the area.

Way understaffed leads to conflicts at checkout. Poor selection of many products. Convenience store selection without the convenience.

As an update to my previous review, my roommate is STILL waiting for his medications. Why? Because the woman at this pharmacy ignored the actual prescription written by the doctor and wrote what she thought it would be (the usual recommendation) instead of what the doctor actually ordered. So once again, he’s stuck waiting for his medication. Thank God it’s not a life or death type medicine. Jameela especially is awful and incompetent and rude on the telephone AND in person as well as the older woman who works there, who is sweet as pie but incompetent.

Colette is the slowest checker ever, Peggy sneezed on my baby, and another employee stood in my way completely oblivious that I needed to get through with my cart. Clearly, this store hired quite the outstanding staff.

Heeeeeeeeeeey,
I was in here the other day and I must say, since Albertson’s’ parent company bought out Safeway, (or since I wrote that last review) I have seen some major improvements at this store. Way to go brining in organic chicken. It seems like there are just better fresh food options everywhere, like real pico de gallo in the produce section and HELL YEAH! Thank you for the continued discounts on Barefoot wine!!!
Now for the less impressives:
I must admit I didn’t look in the deli case this time because I’ve been scared. Still running out of C2O brand all the time… and can you please not tell me to «Have a blessed day»? I am all for being kind to thy neighbor and treating people like Jesus did and whatever but when you say religious shit to me in a corporate chain where I am doing my groceries, I feel like there’s a little devil inside of me and you’re throwing holy water in my direction.

Today I had my best experience so far at this Safeway location. What made this trip so much better than the rest? It was the very first time I haven’t had a rude encounter with an employee! I think they were too distracted by the apparently hilarious conversation a whole group of them was engaged in at the front of the store, but I’ll take lack of service over scowls and sighs any day!
The aisles are still narrow and poorly laid out and the shelves still aren’t well stocked, but that couldn’t take away the extra hop in my step as I departed. Thanks for being too distracted to be rude guys!

I am not a big fan of Safeway in the first place, but I used to live about two blocks away from this store, so it was often the most convenient place to shop. Even then, however, I would often make the trek to Fred Meyer, about a mile or two further away. It’s not that Freddy’s is a lot better than Safeway, but I found it to be a lot more reasonably priced.
An additional star gets removed though due to an incident in November of 2011, when I called the store to see if they offered aluminum can recycling. It was raining (not unusual for Portland) and I did not own a car, so I didn’t want to lug my cans all the way to the store just to find out they don’t offer it. I call up, ask the person on the other line and get an abrupt and very rude «All stores offer recycling», and they hung up. I was briefly puzzled by this, and asked myself:
1. Am I an idiot for not knowing that all grocery (or more specifically Safeway) stores offer recycling?
2. Is the customer service always exceptionally shitty in this city?
or
3. The lady is just a bitch and had something stuck up her you-​know-​what?
I tend to believe number two and three, though I am of course not perfect and make honest mistakes. But does it require being a jerk to a random customer? At the grocery store I used to work at, if you acted that way, you would get chewed out at the least, or possibly canned if a customer reported you to corporate. I was willing to pay more for convenience, but due to the awful service, my mind has changed.

Like many other Safeway’s, this one has installed self-​checkout and fired (?) most of their checkout people.
More than once, I have set my basket on the ground and walked out. I’m not waiting for 30 minutes to buy groceries.
GO TO FRED MEYER. OR NEW SEASONS. OR A GAS STATION. Anything is better.

This is my neighborhood grocery store, less than five minutes away. Not really a fan of this Safeway, so I only go here if necessary. It’s kinda sketchy, and I don’t really like coming here at night.
For some reason, it’s not easy to find stuff in this store. I’ve shopped at three other Safeway stores (St. John’s, Janzen Beach and the one on Fremont), and I find myself wandering around this store, trying to find what I need, which can get frustrating. It also feels crowded, even when there aren’t a lot of people around.
I’m glad they have self checkout stations, but they only have a few, and one is usually not working, so time wise, it’s just not worth it sometimes.
They do have a Starbucks (like most Safeway’s these days), which is decent, and works in a pinch if the Starbucks across the street is packed. Overall, not my fav Safeway, but at least it’s close by.

My local neighborhood Safeway.
This has recently been remodeled to a much more modern look. Which is good, because this used to be referred to as «the Hood» and I had several neighborhood friends that would refuse to go in here before it was updated. Silly people.
Well, they do still have an omnipresent security guard force here. Maybe my friends have a point.
One of the main reasons I go in is the deli. The deli staff are nice, and they make good sandwiches here. I am not a fan of the fried chicken here, however. It is generally way over battered and over cooked.(The fried chicken at the local Fred Meyers is much better.)
But overall, this is a good store.
There is a Starbucks kiosk right when you walk in, a Coinstar machine, lottery tickets machine, and a movie rental box (I think Blockbuster).
*Also-​you can rent those industrial steam clean machines here, too. Which, living with a puppy, has been necessary from time to time.