Kroger

Nicely (re)done Kroger Marketplace (aka Kroger on STEROIDS). I’m never usually over at this location, but took a drive out to B’creek. over the weekend and wound up here…
Coming from the «STICKS,» aka Springfield, this place is semi-​overwhelming at first, then you remember that it’s not much different (set-​up wise) from a Meijer or (gasp!) Super Walmart. They DO have wonderful, expanded deli, bakery, health food, and produce sections, compared to a regular Kroger, and I found myself walking around like I was in a museum (don’t get out much!!!) Ironically, I didn’t find what I needed (a specialty vitamin/​supplement) and wound up going across the street to CVS!
Nice, clean, well-​organized spot. Bonus points for the bank (Fifth-​Third… Mine!!), walk in health clinic, (nice!) Pharmacy, Starbucks (cozy…), and jewelry store (whaaaaaaat?!?). If I lived here, I think I’d be in danger of taking EVEN more time (procrastinating) than I already do wandering the aisles of my local food museum… errrrrrrr… (not so) supermarket!

I should start by saying that most of the store is fine. Good prices, good checkout service, good quality and excellent produce. That’s why it gets three stars. But the $&#@ing deli… oh, the $!#@ing deli. Giving it one star would be a level of generosity worthy of being canonized by the Catholic Church. Why is it so bad? WHY!!! Well, mostly because it’s insanely, mind-​bogglingly slow. No, slow doesn’t do it justice. Glacial is more like it. No, no, that’s not enough, either. It’s like it exists in a whole different universe where the laws of space and time are radically different and what seems like an eternity to us is only the blink of an eye to them. I’ve never seen anything like it. A university should do a study on it. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating. Not even exaggerating one bit here, it takes them about 7 – 10 minutes per ticket number. That means if they’re on 65 and you pick 70, you’re probably waiting at least half an hour, more likely 40 or even 50 minutes. I waited half an hour for it to move two freaking spots one time before I gave up and left. And it’s not even like they really serve a ticket every 7 – 10 minutes. Every time you go there they’ll call several numbers that have no one there, presumably because they gave up and left.
Probably every other time you go you will hear someone complain to the manager about how slow it is, which at this point I can only assume is by design. Nothing could be this crappy on accident. What’s particularly frustrating is there will be eight employees behind the counter but somehow they’ll usually only be serving two or three customers at a time, the others apparently just digging holes and filling them. But it’s not just that. When you do get served it feels like you’re watching them in slow motion. I could, no joke, do it faster myself (with zero deli experience other than buying a lot of deli meat) than their whole $%#!ing crew.
And it’s not like I just had a bad experience. I have given them the benefit of the doubt a ludicrous, borderline moronic amount of times. Every time I think «Hey, I really want some capicola and maybe they’ve cleaned up their act? There’s barely anyone there. It’ll be okay this time.» No. Never. Not even once. Even the time there was only one other customer I still ended up waiting 23 minutes (I timed it with my phone). My girlfriend one time waited over an hour on a Saturday. I waited with her 15 minutes, then said I was going to do our other shopping, went and did that shopping, then came back, waited some more, then went and browsed a little more, then came back and waited a lot more. Granted, it was a little busy that day (10 tickets ahead of her), but I’ve seen Penn Mac in Pittsburgh at Christmas crowded like a rock concert and get through 70 customers in that amount of time with same amount of employees behind the counter. And it’s not like I’m asking for stellar service. It doesn’t have to be that good. I would settle for totally mediocre. What I get, however, is something that could arguably be defined as a crime against humanity. I just want something that doesn’t make me want to scream and jump over the counter to beat them with a hard salami.
Now, you might be wondering, why don’t you just go somewhere else? That’s a reasonable question. The reason is because this is Dayton, where most people don’t eat anything that can’t be bought at a gas station. The only other place in town with a deli that serves anything more exotic than ham is Dorothy Lane Market, which is overpriced and, more importantly, about half an hour from my house. At that point I might as well just go to Jungle Jim’s (which is the best grocery store I’ve ever seen in my life btw and probably my favorite thing in the whole godforsaken state of Ohio), which I often do when I just can’t take it anymore. The problem is, deli meat doesn’t keep long once sliced, so I can only buy so much and I can only drive the 50 minutes to Jungle Jim’s so often. I’ve actually considered buying my own meat slicer, though, and this Kroger’s deli is what drove me to it.