Eve V.
Yelp
This review is for Publix Curbside! The best service EVARRR!
I ordered their service for the first time on Oct. 12. The first use of Curbside is free.
It's amazing, it took me literally 15 minutes including drive time to get my groceries today. I got there just at the beginning of my time slot, rolled up to the door and the guy was coming out just as I got outta the car because I wanted to see their set up. He was SUPER nice and showed me how they do it.
They basically have a fridge and a freezer and bays for carts that are marked with numbers. They number your order and send a special employee to pull it. If they are out of something, they will substitute (if you allow it on the order).
In my case, I didn't allow subs but they pulled them anyway and he said they'd put back what I didn't want with no problem. Ended up subbing in a few things they were out of (no big deal) with store brand or other name brand - lunch meat, raw potatoes, and dish soap. He just went down the list with me and told me my options. One of the sale items they were out of, but he gave me the larger size at the sale price, which is even BETTER.
I swiped my card just inside the door and was done. He brought it all out and loaded my car for me AND GAVE ME A COUPON!! 5$ off the next 50$ or more order - which covers more than half of the curbside fee of 8$!!!
My apples look great, as do my peppers. Not bruised up or banged about. Other produce looks good too, even the Boston lettuce, which is notoriously hard to choose if you aren't familiar with it. All of my meats are individually bagged in the clear plastic so they won't leak.
All the food was bagged EXACTLY how I would bag it myself - frozen with frozen, cold with cold, dairy with dairy, etc.
Couple caveats - The site for ordering is not as easy to sort through as I would like but I still got my order placed pretty quickly (I fooled around with it for almost an hour). It also has the option to make multiple lists and save them so I will probably be putting my recipes in there so I can just mass-add the whole recipe to my cart. Being able to run around the house double-checking is also really great.
You need a four-hour lead time BUT if you place the order and realize you forgot something, there is actually a counter sort of thing to let you know how long you have until you can't change the order and changing is a snap. Place your order for pick up the next day and you've got lots of time to make changes. I think if you go to pick up and step inside and explain you want to take a couple things off, they will be perfectly fine doing that too!
You also don't have to put ANY personal info into the ordering site other than name, address, phone number, and creating a username/pass. No credit card or anything at all like that.
Publix doesn't carry a couple of my favorite things (carrots with the greens on them, Chicken & Broccolli Pasta Roni) BUT the kosher Kroger is literally on the other end of the shopping center so you could pop in there to grab them before picking up from Publix... kind of defeats the purpose but popping into Kroger for two things is STILL going to be faster than doing a full-on shopping trip.
Placed another order yesterday (Nov. 17) and got a phone call this morning from them stating they were out of a few items on my order. They offered me some substitutions (I accepted!) and also inquired if I needed to add anything. I actually did and gave them the names of the items I needed as well as descriptions of what they look like (just in case).