Food Basics

This is the best food basics I have ever shopped at. The management and staff are helpful and friendly and do their best to fill the shelves as quickly as possible despite the best efforts of shoppers to empty them as quickly as possible. As with all grocery stores it can be difficult to navigate when they are restocking the shelves and there are boxes everywhere (I have experienced worse in Loblaws). They try their best to carry the sale items to satisfy all customers but because it is located closest to several areas where lower income families live the sale items leave the shelves quickly. You want those items? Go there on the first day of the sale, not the last. Shopping Monday and Tuesday nights also best because there are smaller crowds, and they sometimes receive deliveries on those nights of the sale items.
I have shopped at the FB on St. Laurent and at Kirkwood Ave where I have found employees down right offensive and insulting towards each other and customers. Here on Merivale when you complain properly at the Managers (not yelling insults in their faces, which makes you look like a unbelievable psycho) they will make sure that either the employee changes their attitude or is fired.
Generally the staff also don’t look friendly on shoppers who are offensive to others. I have seen children running and screaming and adults throwing food in other FB stores and the employees just looking on.

This seems like a dream job for teenagers! Not only do staff get to smack gum at the cash register, but they even get to eat food in between their chats with other employees – all this while serving customers. Lucky!
This is not the first time I have seen this from employees at this location. You can often find employees eating food while putting overstock away in the grocery aisles.
Price is right on some items like canned goods, and quality is lacking in others, like produce.
I always give this place the benefit of the doubt a couple times a year, but then I get an ugly reminder on why I stay away.
Not worth feeling uncomfortable or the hassle.

OK, this place is clearly going in the wrong direction!
Today, I asked for a rain check for a special on marble cheese and was refused! This store can’t manage inventories and now, they won’t honour specials!

This review is strictly for THIS food basics location, and NOT for the grocery chain. This review is based on my visit on June 5^th at 8:30pm.
This is perhaps the worst food basics I’ve been to. The staff working here are not only unhelpful, they are rude. The young looking cashier I had not only gave me attitude but looked at me like I was a pest for asking to pay with mastercard. Not a single, hello, how are you, or even simply thank you. The only exchange we had was when she scolded me for inserting my credit card in the terminal too soon.
She was discriminating the customer in front of me. I felt really uneasy when she was speaking to the elder asian lady in front of me as if she had a mental disability.
Cashier: DO. YOU. WANT. A .BAG (while chewing her gum)
Lady: (in perfect english): No thank you dear, I brought my own.
I understand that this is probably just a part time job after a day at school, but if you don’t even follow the basics of «customer service» why would you even work in this front end customer service job? And I’m even more confused about why Food Basics would hire someone like this.
Besides the poor service here, half the things on my grocery list were empty from the shelves. I can’t really comment on whether this is frequent as this was the first (and last time) I will be visiting this location. The lighting here is also very poor, only half the lights were on. I don’t know if it was just that time I was there or if it’s always like this but this created a very hostile environment. I felt like I was shopping in an underground factory and not a grocery store.

Food Basics is a chain around Ottawa. What I really appreciate about them is that they are a no-​frills, no-​nonsense, really low priced store. Sure, I appreciate the selection of the gourmet grocers, but on a tight budget, I can’t always afford the prices. Food Basics is a great place to get most stuff at moderate prices and occasional items at SUPER deals. Hot italian sausages for $ 2.99! Two packages of salami for $ 5! Cheerios for $ 3! Apples 99 cents a pound! The downside is you have to pay for bags, or use one of the ratty, leftover packaging boxes. And you have to have a quarter in order to snag a cart. Also, it isn’t exactly a model of spic and span. And, you often have to wait to check out because it is a) often busy and b) there aren’t enough cashiers on duty. Hey, you have to make sacrifices if you want to save some dough!