Andrew J.
Yelp
I strongly dislike Jewel and not just this one either.
As you read the store's name on the building, it reads Jewel - Osco. Jewel, of course, is a grocer, and Osco is a pharmacy. The sign implies that this is a market that includes a pharmacy. In practice, I think they have it backwards; it's really an extended pharmacy that includes a market- and all that that implies. Start to finish, Jewel is an expensive, stale, incomplete, and frustrating experience.
When you walk into Walgreens and/or CVS, you know what you're getting into. You might need to pick up a prescription when you realize, "Crap! I need milk and shampoo." You go the the requisite shelves and realize that those items are far from cheap. However, it might be cheaper than buying another tank of gas; plus you have to get your prescription anyway. You're about to make your purchase when you run into a roadblock- there's only one register open, and the person at the head of the line has a stack of coupons (expired) and will be paying with check. And if the cashier is a dollar off, a manager has to come over to keep the peace. But you are in a pharmacy. You've made your bed. Expect this.
That's not necessarily what you expect from a grocer, but essentially that's what you get at Jewel.
Like a pharmacy convenience store, everything is overpriced unless they are having a sale. In that case, food will run you what amounts to pre-sale prices anywhere else. $5 boxes of cereal will get marked down to $3.99 at Jewel, while Target is selling them 2 for $5. That sort of thing. Although their beef and fish are usually OK, their chicken is wildly overpriced, and usually comes in packages that assume you will be hosting a party of 30. Milk is so expensive that Jewel has been of accused of price fixing in the past (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-08-25/news/0008250400_1_milk-consumers-milk-prices-competitive-grocery-market). Have the prices gone down since? Not really.
Jewel is also notorious for their generic brand. In some cases, generics are fine (like generic medications, Roundy's brand from Mariano's, Trader Joe's brand, etc.), but Jewel's stuff is not great and mostly not worth trying. Too bad Jewel wastes so much shelf space trying so hard to sell their own stuff- I've found over the years that as their generic brand spreads, it does so at the expense of items you'd otherwise normally buy.
The produce is about what you'd expect too- generally hard, poor quality on most fruit. While you can find some decent stuff every once in a while, there's not much to choose from. The selection is terrible if you're used to Mariano's or Caputo's, or Valli, or Whole Foods, or Meijer... almost everywhere else, really.
There's also a poor selection of nice cheese/ crackers/ entertaining food. Ten years ago, this was not a big deal. However, as one looks around at other grocers, there's an apparent trend toward more of a connoisseur consumer. I guess Jewel doesn't think that applies to them. But it's about more than having those items for consumption, it's also about having new and interesting things to notice and try when you visit the store. Not just sharp cheddar cheese.
Furthermore, checkout is consistently painful, assuming you have a basket of groceries. Imagine 20 lanes, 4 of which are open, and thus, choked with the same sorts of people you see at Walgreens/ CVS with a hundred coupons. Only this time, they have a shopping cart filled to the brim. Compare this with Valli Produce, a grocer right down the street, who usually have no baggers on duty and can get through a solid line of carts filled with produce in a matter of minutes. The big difference? No coupons, specific cash/ credit only lanes, and cashiers trained to know every fruit and vegetable key code at a glance.
To their credit, Jewel has tried to manage their checkouts. In fact, in this area at least, they pioneered self checkout. It is faster than their regular lines by a lot, but unless you're buying only a few items, you obviously have the same time sucking drawbacks that come with all computerized touch screen cashiers. I guess the problem with their checkouts (in my opinion) is that they're not making their people or their lanes more efficient, they're just trying to get a computer to do the work.
Apparently, Jewel has been around since the turn of the 20th century but has not gotten the memo that they now face unprecedented competition. It's just amazing to me that a grocer could be in business for so long and get things as wrong as they have. Their convenience store mentality isn't convenient for people that just expect fair prices, quality, and selection with a fast checkout. Good luck to Jewel as they now face what will most likely be a serious uphill battle to win back their patrons in the wake of decades of foolish business decisions.
