Asda Stores

While the nearby Morrison’s had some decent gluten-​free food (in the «free from» section, like I would have known that!), I heard that ASDA is huge. And there’s a bus that takes you straight there. So off I went…
Only upon arrival did I see the Wal-​Mart sign next to it. Well, at least the prices will be cheap, right?
I was starving so went to the café, where the lines were long, food was nearly out, and the tables a mess. To their credit, the poor workers were doing their best to keep the lines moving and tables tidied up, but just too many people making a big mess as they went along.
The interior of the store was pretty cold, and the «free from» selections not much greater than Morrison’s (although the freezer section had GF fish for fish and chips, meatballs, pizza, burritos, and the Amy’s line of organic foods). I poked around the rest of the store and found the clothes line to be rather dated (Wal-​Mart and Target in the US are vastly better) and lots of cheap home goods that’s probably OK if you can’t make it out to IKEA. Not worth a second visit; maybe it’s time to see what Tesco and/​or Sainsbury’s has to offer.

Always clean, staff friendly and helpful if you can’t find what you are looking for, and usually very easy to find someone to approach to ask! One of the largest supermarkets in the wider area, so a good place to go for a big shop, or if you can’t find something elsewhere.

To be honest, I think the only reason I go to this supermarket is because it’s near hand and I know it well so I don’t have to spend too much time looking for things. Go on a Friday night if you want to save money because the shelves are nearly always half-​empty if not completely empty. No matter what you want to buy, you can bet your life that there’s a huge loading crate in front of it — either waiting to be unpacked onto the shelves or left by one of the staff who are doing on-​line shopping for a customer. The worst part, though, is when you get to the checkout! A few of the staff are quite happy to help you pack but many of them are rude, unhelpful and seem to take great delight in whizzing your shopping through so fast that you could never keep up with them anyway and you end up throwing anything in any bag just to get it done. Oh, yes, and beware taking anything to customer services because the treatment you get depends on who serves you — one lady in particular seems to take it as a personal insult if you return anything and acts as if it’s her own purse the money is coming out of if you need a refund!

Not quite as pure evil as its parent company Walmart, Asda has still never been a favourite with me. I found this branch to not be much better.
There’s nothing terrible about this Asda, but it has enough faults to make you want to shop elsewhere. Why Asda and not elsewhere? Like its other chains, Asda is a bit more expensive, and the quality isn’t as good for most of its fresh produce.
If I really must shop at a supermarket, I might as well justify it by its super cheapness or utter convenience. The better part of my soul might resent my local Tesco, but at least I have a good economic reason for going there.
They might not oppose unions like Walmart, but I would still rather shop elsewhere.

Bagels stale less than 24hrs from purchase. Lovely. At least the birds appreciated them, me, not so much.

I get my messages here every week and I always find this the cheapest place to shop. The non food section seems to get bigger each week and so does the drink section. As soon as they cleared away Halloween, its Christmas at ASDA.

I frequently stop at this supermarket on the way home from work as they’re huge and have a great selection and reasonable short queues.
They have a large clothing selection, as well as books, magazine, soft furnishing, dvds and of course food.

I would consider this to be the best supermarket around this area. It is open 24 hours and has a clothes departement, jewelery department, electrical goods and toy department as well as the food department. Prices are reasonable and its a large store with plenty spaces between aisles.
It is a great place to go Christmas shopping in the early hours of the morning on the run up to Christmas, while the shop is a lot emptier to save the hassle of having to queue forever during the day.
Staff aren’t always the cheeriest I have come across in supermarkets, but the prices and roomy shop make up for this.