Stop & Shop Supermarket

Last night Tiesha went out of her way to help me after the seafood lady had blown me off. I appreciate her efforts very much. Thank you to Tiya as well.

Gonna pop-​off a five star review for this joint right now, because I simply have not experienced anything negative here, and I feel like all these whole foods yuppies showed up here once and were utterly shocked to be unable to find their favorite pre-​made double-​organic gluten-​free omega3 infused wheatberry salad. This is a regular old shopping store in which you’re likely to find patrons with many different backgrounds. Take your snobby white-​bread behind elsewhere if you can’t handle that.

It’s in da hood!!! What do you expect! I will never forget one morning I was there with my grandma about 830 in the morning and the brinks truck pulled up. One of the drivers pulled his gun out as he was entering the store and had it out of his return. A scary ass white kid who probably only seen black people on tv. I got a chuckle out of it.

This is absolutely the worst service I have ever received not even a dog is treated as unfair as people are treated in this Stop & Shop. This Stop & Shop lacks in cleanliness customer service efficiency communication with others. well not recommend to anyone.
I take my hat off to the deli department here and the seafood department here absolutely worst ever. They already ready to in-​gauge a fight with just saying your number.

What can I say, the only good thing about this place is they have parking. The prices are not good, the service is non existent (you pretty much have to do your own checkout and bagging), and they consistently over charge for items. They send you coupons in the mail to entice you into the store, and then you find they’re out stock. In short, it’s a pain in the butt to shop here and I’ve been screwed so many times by false advertising and being charged incorrectly that I don’t shop here anymore. I shouldn’t need to keep a close eye on prices for every item that gets rung up, so I just take my business to Whole Foods and Wegmans now.

I feel fortunate to have this store in my neighborhood. I like it and I like the people who work and shop here. Much better than the over-​rated Snotty Foods up the street. If you don’t like it here than stay in or move to the suburbs.

A guilty confession: not unlike David A, I use this Stop & Shop’s Unilocal reviews as a barometer of the insane, vaguely-​racist opinions of suburban residents of the greater Metro area. I have yet to stumble across a more telling set of reviews. Giving me some heart is the fact that the trend seems to be mostly in the direction of less smug-​bigotry as time progresses, but it’s still eye-​opening to see folks speak candidly about my own backyard.
So, to get it all out in the open: yep, this grocery store shares a driveway with Bromley-​Heath, the city’s most notorious housing project if you’re a pearl-​clutching white guy fleeing the city in 1972 in advance of the dread specter of integrated public schools. More contemporarily, what this is likely to mean is that a fair number of shoppers here are using SNAP benefits, and I think I remember reading somewhere that using government food assistance qualifies you for open derision and direct interrogation of each and every financial decision you have made at any point in your life. I’m not positive about the exact terms of the arrangement; the details were buried somewhere in the back of the main program from the 2008 GOP primaries, and you know how volatile these things are. Nunuv Y can apparently help you out on this one. Anyway! Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass to be stuck in a line behind SNAP shoppers, because SNAP is an incredible pain in the ass to use – individual coupons for individual items, some of which are only partially qualified, etc. This can sometimes lead to long lines here, especially when they under-​staff the checkout lines, which is every day. If I had to guess, I would also say that this Stop & Shop underpays their employees, which is why the median age is about 19, and which helps explain why most folks in the store do not appear to give the faintest hint of a damn. To their credit, this problem has gotten less awful in the last couple of years, though it’s still startling to see the difference between a place like this and Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. I am a little confused about the grocery cart situation, because half the time there are five hundred carts jamming the sidewalk and blocking the entrance, and the other half of the time, you have to go make vaguely threatening motions at grocery-​cart-​squatters until they relinquish their hold on a cart with three crooked wheels. My single greatest complaint about this place is that the cart return corral is in the middle of the parking lot, and the parking lot isn’t flat, so god help you if you park downhill from it, because your car will be assaulted relentlessly by viciously-​accelerating squeaky carts of death.
As far as groceries go… it’s a grocery store. It’s actually a pretty good one, as grocery stores go, with a few strengths (excellent Goya selection, which my bean-​loving self appreciates; really excellent selection of cheaper cuts of protein, so I can shop for pork shoulder and short ribs for absurdly cheap) and a few weaknesses (not impressed by the fish selection, and I’ve run into problems like Kirs P describes with sad chili peppers). Generally I find everything I’m looking for, though I sometimes have to pop down the street to Whole Foods for the really esoteric Yuppie White Guy vegan chocolate chips or whatever. Staples are cheap (do you like white rice? Do you need 80 pounds of it? I have good news!), dairy is reasonable, and sometimes Ben & Jerry’s pints are 2 for $ 6.
In conclusion: Stop & Shop is a land of contrasts. It’s not perfect, but it certainly isn’t Max Mad II in here, which seems to be the general tone of the other reviews.

If, like me, one of your favorite activities as a JP resident is reading yupsters’ reviews of urban businesses, then this place is a goldmine. Some of this is downright hilarious.
1. It’s a Stop & Shop, and is not 10% better or worse than any other Stop & Shop. You will not be buying locally-​sourced chard here, but you won’t be spending $ 6 on a half-​gallon of milk like you will at WF either.
2. Yes, many people of ethnic minorities both shop and work here. If you find this particularly terrifying, I suggest you find a different place to live.
3. While I would indeed rate the cashiers as slower than your average S&S, I would say that the place is often better-​stocked than the one I used to frequent in a nice, rich suburb. Clean, too.
4. I’d obviously love to have a closer TJ’s or a Market Basket, but shopping here sure beats spending twice as much money at the aforementioned Whole Foods down the street. I’m actually not sure I could afford to live here if that were my only option.
5. Produce is definitely not great, but again it’s only slightly worse than your average S&S. Market Basket’s the only big supermarket chain with decent produce in my opinion — and thankfully JP has a couple of farmers’ markets for anyone who feels like paying a premium.
6. Chicken n’ Waffles potato chips!

Among the worst grocery stores I’ve ever been to. I go either out of location convenience, or when I absolutely need something that only they have.
Produce is consistently terrible; not fresh and flavorless. Prices are average. Selection is Ok.
Staff is comically un-​helpful. I’ve seen deli workers carry on conversations for what seemed like more than 5 minutes while completely ignoring people wait in line. I’ve seen people waiting near the self check out for assistance long enough for them to leave out of frustration.
The place is pretty clean, and carries standard groceries that you can find at any chain, so there you go. 2 stars, because I feel good.

Sorry, but this place is back to 2 stars in my book. By biggest gripe as of late is the lack of shopping carts. I have arrived countless times to find not one shopping cart available, and if you are lucky enough to score one count on it having busted wheels and/​or being filthy.

I would like to fully and wholeheartedly echo everything Stacy L. Said in the recent review of 2014. The are looked completely safe and bustling with normal ppl and life, a diverse demographic of ppl busily coming and going. Inside, all the employees were super sweet and helpful and funny, everyone was polite and patient (as I took like 45 mins at the damn self-​checkout), food was organized and fresh and super-​affordable. I was almost ashamed that I was nervous before heading to this Stop n Shop.

Always an entertaining experience. Kids riding bicycles through the store? Check. Slowest cashiers in the world? Check. Self service checkouts all broken? Duh. However, people are generally friendly, and they sell food, which I like. Also, their avocados are always on sale, which is a plus. I just wished they could up their yogurt game, as whenever I go there seems to be one moldy yogurt that all the yuppies are fighting for.

Pretty dirty and is in a pretty bad neighborhood (no offense if you happen to live near it!). Service is very slow and the produce is not very fresh. I won’t be going back.

I hate going to this place. I leave in a bad mood every time. I don’t plan on going again.
One time I noticed they charged me $ 10 for flowers. I didn’t buy flowers. When I went back the next day to get my money back I had to wait in line for 20 minutes because of all the people buying lottery tickets at the customer service desk. This may shock you but none of those people ended up having the winning ticket.
I once waited in line for 30 minutes because the store was packed and the lady in front of me felt she was being overcharged and argued FOREVER. Most of the customers here shop using food stamps and it slows everything down. Then there are the people who use the self check out machines even though they don’t know how to use them.
The produce here sucks, probably because most of the customers only buy soda and chips so things are left to rot. Last week I bought mushrooms and 2 days later they were moldy, smelly and inedible.
The members of Congress should come here on a saturday and watch all the tax dollars being wasted on soda and cheese puffs. Maybe then they’d finally strengthen the restrictions of SNAP and stop giving hand outs to the Corn Industry. Did I just make a political rant on this stupid site?! Thats how much I dislike coming to this grocery store.

I’m really not sure what to say here. Some of these reviewers seem certifiably insane to me. I am new to JP, but only in the sense of never having personally lived here. My family is from JP, like back in the day, and I moved back to Boston from California. All of my family, who still all live in MA, were freaking out when my husband and I said we were moving to JP. Like it’s scary or something. Ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous before we moved in, but now that I live here I see that people’s comments are just — - well, you get the idea.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into this Stop and Shop. I had read the reviews and I doubted them, but I wasn’t sure. This Stop and Shop is almost exactly the same as the one in Weymouth (my hometown) which, last time I checked, is not the ghetto. In fact, it’s better because it has a huge assortment of goods you could never get in Weymouth.
I was expecting maybe a little dinginess or something. After all, it is a city grocery store. No, nothing. Their produce all looked good to me. They have an organic section too. Now, I don’t eat organic so maybe it’s lacking, but there is a Whole Foods if you need it. I can find these organic Amy’s Burritos my husband likes here. I also found some tasty, but expensive, tortilla chips that looked better than any of the dorritos or tostito crap they had in their chip aisle. Oh good, look, a complaint: they should have better regular tortilla chips.
Anyway, I had 0 problems with this store. Perfectly good Stop & Shop. Not sure what everyone’s overwrought reactions are about.

This is seriously the best grocery store in Boston. The prices aren’t ridiculous, there’s a bunch of self check-​out, everyone is nice, and there’s always a good selection of produce and vegan stuff, as well as awesome international foods. AND THEY HAVE A DENTED CAN MARK-​DOWN SECTION.
I don’t get why people think this place is sketchy. It’s a grocery store. Everyone just calm down. It’s inexpensive and has a huge variety of products, and just because it isn’t a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s doesn’t make it inherently frightening.

This place is a joke.
1. Customers struggling in the self-​check out are deliberately ignored or snapped at. Nobody helps them bagging either, even when the worker is 5 feet away leaning on the wall checking on her manicure.
2. Workers smoke next to the entrance, so everyone entering the store has to smoke along.
3. Rude customers don’t bring the carts back, so carts are all spread out in the parking lot, while workers smoke and look at them. Carts hit the parked cars but nobody seems to care.
4. Dirty dirty dirty!
5. Produce is even more expensive than Whole Foods! and far worst quality.
When is Trader Joe’s coming to JP?

Just feel the need to counter the egregious classism and veiled racism in most of the reviews of this place.
I have shopped here regularly since it opened. I am a vegetarian and have never had a problem finding the foods I like to eat. I have a certain amount of gratitude to this store because before it opened (yeah, I’m old) JP only had the filthy Hi-​Lo and the crappy, expensive Flanagan’s. Like most non Whole Foods supermarkets, if you have the card and are aware of the sales, you can get out of here very cheaply.
And yes. This location is in the city. You will find brown people shopping here. You will find brown people working here. You may be surprised that at a supermarket that abuts a housing project, poor people shop here. If this bothers you, do not shop here and please do not take to Unilocal to express your outrage that Those People frequent (and work at!) this store. And by the way, why the hell do you live in the city anyway?

This location serves a purpose for the neighbor hood that it is in. Yes, it could be cleaner, more organized, better stocked & just plain more inviting. I usual just go in & get what I need & get out. No muss, no fuss. Not really a lot to remember about this place.

Oh, how I hate this Stop & Shop. Before Whole Foods opened in JP, I came here relatively frequently– far more frequently than I wished– to buy things I couldn’t feasibly lug home on the 39 or the 66 from Trader Joe’s in Coolidge Corner or the Symphony Whole Foods. It was a miserable existence, in large part because this store is miserable.
I don’t actually have any problem with the employees. I don’t expect obsequious service anywhere, much less a grocery store, so I have felt perfectly fine about the cashiers’ attitudes. And I have actually gotten someone to direct me to an item I was looking for without any eye-​rolling.
But, I’ve been here several times (in the FALL!) hoping to buy apples and leaving empty handed because they were all bruised or mushy or otherwise inedible. I once tried to buy an onion, any kind of onion, and there was not one in the whole place that wasn’t rotten. Organic carrots? Never seen ‘em. The prices are also surprisingly high for the dismal quality offered here.
Really, what’s the point of going to the grocery store if you can’t actually find any food to eat there?