Walgreens

Walgreens Newark — At the corner of Condescending and Incompetent
First let’s review the Pharmacy — borderline illegal?
One of the pharmacists, Maria?, tried to imply my partner an addict when he went to fill a pain prescription post surgery. She even took it upon herself to call his doctor and «warn» him of what she suspected was foul play — the doctor let us know he got the call. Partner complained to store manager. Outcome — nothing but canned apology and a promise for a follow up.
We now go to CVS or elsewhere for prescriptions.
Passport photos — incompetence
Don’t do it! Took my pictures. Asked the young girl if she was sure these met requirements and she said yes absolutely!
Next day at the passport office — I find out no, they do not meet the requirements. And I had to pay double at a nearby passport photo shop to get the right pics taken. Walgreens gave me a refund when I went back, but no courtesy credit to other customer service extra to make up for the extra unnecessary expense bc of their incompetency. Outcome– refund and canned apology and not very believable assurance that he will tell employees to do a better job with their service.
No more Walgreen passport photos.
The petite female manager who started to handle the passport refund until I asked for another manager: I witnessed her months earlier berate a young employee who was helping me and then she got angry and wrote him up when he did the smart thing by staying quiet and not answering back to her. I let her know after she «sent him to the back» and spoke with him that he was actually being quite helpful to me. Apparently great customer service is not the kind of behavior she rewards because «he did not answer» her.
Overall rudeness, and immature management has been the consistent experience. Except one elderly African American woman at the register by the door usually in the am but I haven’t seen her in awhile…
C’mon get it together Walgreens Newark! Just bc you’re a big box store doesn’t mean you have right to treat people less than… Learn from some of your other sister stores who are doing it right!
Walgreens Newark — at the corner of losing business and needing training.

OK I’ve been here many times before and wanted to give this place a chance to redeem itself before i reviewed. Bottom line this place blows, its almost as if no one works here. Long slow line is standard issue! (Note the singular on line)…i noticed some Unilocalers giving 5 stars. .WTF?.. i guess when your buying condoms at 4am your happy about something. .lol
A simple task of getting a greeting card was impossible the, all the damn envelopes were missing? .another WTF… have they been stolen? .who knows. the parking is also a joke, it’s an 8 car lot so tight you’ll be cursing yourself after your 20point K turn to exit the lot. Overall this is just a last resort type place.

The lines are normally long and just one cashier working! Sometimes there is a cashier in the cosmetics section if you buy something from that section you can pay there, but she is not just standing behind register so you have no idea you could’ve paid there. Also, there are two photo kiosks and one is normally down. This time both were down. I’ve ordered pictures online to be picked up and have waited forever for someone to show up and help me.
Most of the time I have no choice but to go here because of my work hours since it is open 24 hrs. Enough said.

Five stars because I always find what I am looking for! that’s it!

This has to be one of the worst Walgreen’s around, if there are three or four people in line, expect to wait and wait. Pricing items is a tricking thing, when you get to the cash register, don’t be shocked at the new price, it’s always higher. Avoid unless you need a few essentials.
This Walgreen’s caters to the working class section of the Ironbound, missing many items that you will find in other locations. I’m sure they are taking advantage of the none English speaking community.

this five star walgreens has many good things going for it. here’s a quick ‘pro’ list —
1. it’s open 24 hours
2. there’s a parking lot (in nortoriously parking-​unfriendly newark)
3. there’s a food section (though, Unilocaler albert w is right in saying prices are steep — but if you need it, you need it and it’s there).
4. it’s clean and non-​skeevy
5. the lines move at a decent pace
6. they sell portuguese rolls there
the only ‘con’ is that some of the stock is locked behind clear plastic enclosures (to prevent shoplifting). so, for example, if you want to buy deodorant, you have to press a button by the plastic case. the PA system will announce in a sterile fembot voice, «customer representative needed in the deodorant section,» so everyone in the store knows you’re buying deodorant.
see, i’m a low-​key person, so this is a bit of a con for me. however, i’d say it’s one of the better pharmacies to go to if in newark.

One of the few «brandname» drug store chains in Newark. Prices are actually pretty steep in the food pantry isle, so look for yellow tag specials. 2/​$ 3 Goldfish or 2/​$ 3 Combos for example. 3 12pk cans of CocaCola products is also a prominent deal.