Whole Foods

We were in this immediate vicinity yesterday, so it was a good opportunity to buy as many items as we could carry easily. On the positive side, all of the employees with whom we came into contact were very pleasant and helpful. However, there were two negative aspects: music was *blasting* the whole time, and the layout of the store was like a maze.

Great addition to the neighborhood. Most grocery items are at the bottom level. Space is bright and clean, even tho it feels like a maze, but this is Manhattan so what do you expect. Service is friendly and attentive. With that said, we've been there twice since they opened, and both times there's some system glitch so they had to scan EVERYTHING again after we already put everything in bag. Pls tix it.

I went in to the food counter where you get one main and two side dishes. There was one guy being waited on and no one else. So I stood next to him to his right and waited and I was the only one. There were two black girls behind the counter working.

I stood there for about 7 minutes when this black middle aged lady customer walked up next to me to my right. She was on a face time call and mentioned to her caller that she wanted to see what was in the case and she squeezed by me to lean in and see.

After a couple min, they finished with the male customer to my left and immediately ignored me (I had been standing there going on 10 minutes at this point) and turned to the black middled aged lady to my right and asked her what they could get her. The lady knew she was not next but she proceeded to tell the girl behind the counter her order anyway, totally ignoring the fact I was standing right there just like the girl behind the counter was doing.

They never asked, 'who's next?' or 'who was her first?' or anything. She just turned to the black lady to my right and asked her what she would like and ignored me standing right there in front of her.

My gut reaction was that because I am white, the black girl behind the counter asked the black lady customer for her order first even though the counter girl knew I had been there the whole time way before the lady ever walked up.

I was so angry. I said 'excuse me, did you NOT see me standing here??!' to the lady who proceeded to act shocked that I would say anything. Then I said ' no thats ok I know I must be invisible' and proceeded to walk away because I was hungry and figured I should go somewhere else to find food.

The lady proceeded to yell at me that I should take my attitude somewhere else at which point I turned and yell back that she knew she cut in front of me and she knew I had been standing there the whole time before she even walked up. The girls behind the counter never said a word, never apologized, nothing. At that point they had to know what they did but still nothing.

After initially walking out, I decided to go back and complain to the manager. I couldn't do anything about the crappy behavior and entitlement attitude of the lady customer, but I could complain about the poor customer service and the inexcusable treatment of a customer and 1) managing customers so as to not let one cut in front of another or intentionally call on them out of order and 2) to interceded when a situation like that occurs and apologize and rectify it not ignore what they did and let it go and 3) put in a ticket system or something to prevent any awkward situations like that again because a customer should not be put in the awkward position of having to defend themselves when they are mistreated and 4) retrain the staff to treat all customers fairly.

The manager looked to be about 30ish white or Spanish looking guy. He offered a half hearted apology and kept saying he had no idea who worked behind that counter. Which is not acceptable. He had to know. He also offered nothing in the way of compensation like asking if I would like him to help me get my food or anything at all. He just let me explain what happened, explain how I have zero tolerance for poor customer service, and then he said he would take it as a learning exercise and then he let me leave. So I know he could care less and he will do absolutely nothing about it.

It seems either they did not spend much effort in their hiring practice to hire people who would be diligent and do a good job, or they did not spend much effort instilling proper etiquette in staff during training, or they simply turn a blind eye to customers being treated to either a form of racism or blatant crappy could care less service. It's one or the other.

Either one is unacceptable and the reason for the one star review.

Love it. Whole Foods is one of the best if not the best supermarket chains in New York City. I wish there was even more supermarkets on the level of Whole Foods. I don't eat at restaurants so the more supermarkets the better for me.