Rabba Fine Foods Stores

Pros:
It is right under my building.
Its open ²⁴⁄₇
It has more selection than a typical corner store
Cons:
Its slightly more expensive than a typical grocery store
Some of the selection of ready to eat stuff is pretty bad
The Falafel was super stale
The cabbages outside are starting to ferment
Its open 24 hours so I get lazy
don’t go anywhere. RABBA Dabba do!

Rabba’s is basically your average grocery store, except it’s smaller with less merchandise and also located on a strange stretch of the street. I only come by in case of emergencies and even then I’d rather go to a different grocery store.
They don’t have any particular deals (or a rewards program) that will cause the average consumer to say, «I have to go to Rabba’s!» It’s not bad but not good either, and certainly not impressive.
It kind of reminds me 7 – 11 with its aisles and aisles of cold drinks and ice cream, so Rabba’s has more of a convenience store vibe than a grocery store. Perfect for quick snacks but not quite worthy of spending oodles of money for produce!

Inattentive and absolutely indifferent staff.
The only reason Rabba exists is because Mac’s Milk has virtually disappeared and because it’s 24 hours. Otherwise, it’s one horrible place to have to shop.
Why? It isn’t the prices, which are high since it is a convenience store, so there’s no surprise there. It isn’t the cleanliness either; the place is clean enough. It’s the staff, always. They seem to live on another planet, only alighting on earth because, well, they need to pay their bills and so they might as well stand around the store pretending they’re actually part of a business, deigning to take money for your purchases while pretending too that you aren’t there.
I’ve been in stores where there’s poor service or no service, but this is worse. It’s service that condescends, that says to you, You’re there and I’m here and I’m going to ring this in and you’ll leave the store and I don’t care if you ever shop here again or even exist. I get that retail isn’t glamorous (and I’ve worked in retail). And I haven’t gone into Rabba with a chip on my shoulder or a surly face. But every Rabba store experience is the same, so there must be some kind of top-​down culture that says that it’s okay to treat customers as inconveniences or nobodies. Now, when I think Rabba I think Neptune.
I went in the other day and decided after No More. Here’s what happened. I was purchasing an item that clearly showed a price set by the vendor. The item when scanned, though, showed a higher price. I asked the clerk about it, and he looked at the item. He saw the original price but couldn’t explain the difference. So he calls someone else over. Mr Someone Else looks at it and says «It’s the tax.» I said «Do the math; there’s no way that that’s the tax.» He then said, curtly, «If you want to buy it, come in the morning and speak to the manager. Otherwise pay the scanned price — Next!» he shouts over my head. «Wait a minute,» I said. «The price is on the item. Can’t you ring it in manually?» Mr Someone Else repeats himself. He clearly Does Not Give A F*** and let’s me know it.
And neither do I. Times change, things move on. One day Rabba will end up like Mac’s and disappear. And we’ll all be the better for it.

This is a good place if you forgot to pick something up and it’s the middle of the night. They do have a lot of stuff. Including almond milk and Greek yogurt. Not bad if you’re in a pinch. That being said, not a nice vibe or ambience and some of the cashiers are really unfriendly. I wouldn’t do my main shopping here but it’s nice to have it in the neighbourhood.

Even for a Rabba this grocery store is terrible. I needed to do a last minute re-​up of groceries for the upcoming week, didn’t need much, so I ran across the street to Rabba, expecting the limited stock and bad prices Rabba is known for. My hopes were too high.
This is what you would expect from a grocery store several weeks into a Zombie Apocalypse.
Instead of picking up my intended variety of fruit, I had to purchase mostly pears, as everything else was mushy &/​or moldy; the sushi was brown; strangely, there was a package of hot dogs unopened but still missing a dog and rotting on the inside; the gyoza’s were changing color & cracking in visable staleness; my eggs needed to be returned and replaced with a new pack because someone had ripped off the barcode on mine… Huh?
In every area this store tried to be more than a convenience store, it failed. Perfect for cold drinks, beef jerky, and cigarettes.

You don’t come here to buy groceries. You come here because the grocery store is closed and you forgot to buy eggs, or milk, or cereal, or what ever it is that can’t wait until 8am the next day.
The staff don’t know where everything is, and English is not their first language so they may not understand what you are looking for. Best to ask multiple people what you need before giving up.
Cigarettes are slightly overpriced. As is everything else.
You know it’s classy when the hygiene supplies are kept behind the counter.

It’s 24 hours, the Women at the cash tills are ALWAYS sweet
It just isn’t a very good grocery store. The produce is cheaper or average than the other grocery markets further away and not that much better
The produce is also slightly lower quality.
I come here for fruit, SOME veg and in a pinch just because it’s there.
There are some nice middle eastern goods at Rabbas stores too that you might not find elsewhere.

When I first moved here every time I went here and wanted to buy anything with an expiry date… guess what… IT WAS EXPIRED. Also, I purchased milk that had these baby chunks in it and when I called the milk company they said it hadn’t been stored at a proper temperature. Also, the store smells. I can’t put my finger on what it is but it smells.
I like that they have the lottery and they are great when you really need something last minute at any time of the day. Additionally, the people who work there are really nice.

Rabba’s good in a pinch, especially when a gal wants a pint of ice cream in the wee hours of the morning. However, its paltry produce selection, sad deli section, and inflated prices relegate Rabba strictly to the «only as a last resort» list. Most of the time, what keeps me from coming here are the panhandlers that are often out front — they can be belligerent, and I’ve seen the bums actually follow people inside the store. The management doesn’t seem to do much to keep them away.

Oh the Rabba! What would I do without your 24 hour support?
Rabba is great, has a pretty good variety and sales every 2 weeks. The selection is actually quite surprising and usually the prices aren’t too bad.
Oh! and they also have a RBC bank machine.