Gregg S.
Yelp
Never Fails to Disappoint.
I've used Star Markets for all 9 years that I've lived in Boston. First at Huntiington and now at Kilmarnock in Fenway. The one at huntington tried, and sometime succeeded, to improve itself.
The Star at 33 Kilmarnock has taken a different path and actively antagonizes customers.
My most recent experience was today (saturday) at 2pm. The store was very crowded as always. It has about 1/3 of the floor space at Huntington. So some of its choices are surprising.
Despite what Star Market web site says, and an email from Corporate, they refuse to take recycling "films". Despite that almost every items in their store uses these, they refuse to accept them. And they want you to buy plastic bags if you want to recycle bottles.
But today, They had one 15 or fewer cashier and one everything cashier.
This situation lasted for over 20 minutes while 23 people (I counted) waited in the two lines. Of course, the 15 or fewer rule quickly went out the window, further inconveniencing the customers who just wanted to grab a quick item or two.
I asked one of the stock-people to grab a manager and ask if they could open another line or two. I was told that the manager was busy and the AM was at customer-service. If I wanted to talk, I'd have to go over there.
So I did. When I arrived at CS (45 seconds later) there was no Asst Manager and the woman working there didn't know where they were. I asked if she could open another line or two and she reached for a phone.
I said Thank you and returned to the line.
In a stunning display of either lack of awareness or not caring, no manager showed up and no one opened another line.
By the way, NO ONE was using the self-service check-outs. They are flawed and their software interface looks like it was designed by someone arranging blocks in nursery school. Obviously bad if everyone was willing to wait in long lines rather than use the self-service. I've tried and its horrible.
Finally it was my turn at checkout. The lady ringing my items started scanning and dropping on the counter as the couple ahead of me was still collecting their items. By the time they left, more then 2/3 of my items had been scanned and dumped. So I scrambled to put in my cart. When I finished and went to enter my phone number for the Rewards Program, I was told that I was too late.
Its my fault, I shouldn't have packed my items.
I was supposed to enter the number as soon as she started scanning. (Of course, I couldn't because the couple in front was still packing their items.)
I love being blamed for things.
Fortunately, Star has a monopoly here and, as such, will continue to do what they want. I'll leave their selection choices for another review. Glad I can't get 1/2 of the ingredients I'd like but I have the choice of 27 different types of corn chips. Thank goodness for online shopping.
Have a great afternoon.