Safeway

Always clean and friendly staff! They need to treat their employees better. If you have a fabulous staff member everyone adores then you should do what you can to keep them! Staff is always friendly except customer service desk never has anyone working it.

This Safeway’s employees are the NICEST staff! So helpful, friendly, and respectful. I went during the day and was out within a few minutes thanks to self checkout. I’ll be going back

Rating this place 4 stars because they let me get away with late night shenanigans. A vegan friend of mine was looking for dinner since our group decided on Toto’s Pizza. There was nobody in the bakery so I just walked behind the register and pretended that I worked there
Not many vegan options so we settled on Pumpkin Spice Oreos
*shrug* could be worse

Okay, they just increased the price of Dave’s Killer Bread to $ 6.50. That was the only reason left to keep shopping there and now I’m done. They treat their staff like crap and it shows in the service. Trader Joe’s knows how to manage a staff and you can tell they are treated better. I’m done with this greedy penny pinching chain.

I hate this Safeway. The lines are always ridiculous and there’s never enough staff. Literally asked someone if the could point me in the direction of something and he shrugged and said I wouldn’t know. REALLYY?
I give two stars because I feel like understaffing isn’t everyone’s fault… Maybe management… maybe the corporation, but it’s upsetting for the customer and frustrating for the staff.
Avoid this location at all costs. Unfortunately for me it’s walking distance and the only thing open ²⁴⁄₇ around me. Arghh.
Hopefully it gets better.

dude.
it is saturday night at 10:00 pm and i have had a cocktail (or four) and i’m grocery shopping, as one does.
i turn the corner to pay and there is one checker for a line of approximately 25 people. the line was all the way past the frozen foods aisle.
drunk people need groceries too, safeway. also, my über is outside and doesn’t speak super fluent english and doesn’t understand «no self checkout.»
why am i shouting? i can’t feel my face.
i love fritos.

Went to this safeway and it’s pleasantly nice and clean and well laid out. Went there for many things but especially something from seafood to cook a nice dinner for my wife.
I was happy with the service given to me when speaking with the seafood manager about his recommendations. He explained to me how to cook and deal with lobster tails. I had never cooked this before but was happy to speak with someone who both had knowledge, and grasped the English language. My dinner turned out well and I was happy with my experience at safeway.

This is a pretty good store and is our go-​to for everything but seafood. Stay away from the seafood counter.
Over the past few months I’ve bought king crab, rockfish, and shrimp only to get home and realize that it is pretty obviously spoiled. I didn’t notice at the store since they pack it up and you never really touch it. I cook fish and seafood pretty regularly so I know what good and bad smells like — it’s not like this is my first time buying fish and I’m just weirded out by it. They just sometimes sell fish that should have been thrown out. (Oddly, the sushi at the deli counter seems fine — must be a different supply chain or something).

This location usually has a great selection, friendly people working, and is never that busy. The remade stuff is always tasty, their sushi is good, and it appears that they take care of the place. The produce and meat departments are usually well stocked with good looking products, but the fish area can sometimes be iffy. I bought some fish here with my wife a while ago, opened it at home and threw it away. Something was definitely wrong with it.
There isn’t a whole lot more to say than that. There is one guy who works here who is super tall, and always has the worst attitude. You can tell he does not like his job, and it radiates across with how he treats his customers.

Stay Away from this Safeway flowers. It was never like this before. But recently it is so so bad, flowers don’t even last for 3 days… oh about their 5 days guarantee. I called floral dept and she hung up on me.
STOP buying flowers from here… not worth your money!

I think that the Safeway policy of being attentive and courteous and paid off by creating a workplace culture of positive regard. Even if you know they are just doing their job, the general friendliness and helpfulness of the staff makes for a positive shopping experience. I am pleased by the increased availabiltiy of organic items. I am especially grateful for the community support provided by Safeway to Arts Unity Movement, which is producing the New Ground Theatre Dance Company show Quantum Leap, which opens June 5. Thanks Safeway, for contributing to the refreshments

Love the sushi here even though I usually get them late at 9pm or 10pm.
The Safeway soups do get cleared early though :(
Staff are always friendly and helpful. Checkout is usually really fast.
A must try — three twins icecream.

I usually go to safeway to pick up bus tokens for my teenage sons and one night I got home late after work forgetting to pick up the tokens, I woke up early the next day and headed to pick them up.
Arriving at the checkout lane I was told only customer sevice were the ones to get them from and the gentleman at the register asked one of the late night crew guys to see if I could get them through customer service who were still closed.
I walked with him, he spoke with a female who replied saying she was closed and would not sale me a bag of tokens for the kids. I walked away feeling sick to my stomach at the discourtesy considering I have been their customer for a decade at this location and unfortunately for them I will be taking my business elsewhere.
Some humanity and common courtesy is what this store needs, considering they have their jobs based on those secret shoppers, customer care should be priority and keeping your shelves fresh could help too.

Likely this is not the best place to publish this but after receiving an extraordinarily patronizing nonresponse to an email I sent to Safeway Corporate I feel the need to share this event.
On Wednesday February 18^th as I pulled into the parking lot of the Safeway on 1100 El Camino Real in Belmont, I saw two individuals struggling just outside the doors of the grocery. One was clearly a Safeway employee and was struggling with an individual who appeared to have taken some items from the store. The individual who appeared to have taken something from the store escaped and began walking toward Ralston Ave.
Being a good citizen (and a retired police officer) I immediately called the Belmont Police who dispatched Officers to the Safeway and to intercept the individual. I provided my name and information to the police however; the Safeway employee who I had seen earlier struggling with the individual appeared very unhappy that I had called police and despite the police attempting to introduce us dismissed me.
I was not looking for a reward but a simple thank you, that may have been to much to ask (as I may hear from some of you) but it would have been what I would have wanted.

I’ve been shopping here for years. I have put up with checkers mis-​identifying peppers; charging me a higher price, not applying my «just for U» discounts, charging me for items I didn’t even have.
But my biggest complaint is the crumbs in chips bags that I purchase. Whenever I open a bag of chips (all kinds; tortilla, potato, corn) I always end up with at least a third of the bag being crumbs.
Now this includes dog biscuits. Priority Dog Biscuits changed their packaging to a cardboard box from a plastic bag. Dog biscuits are very hard, so I was extremely disappointed when I opened the box and found close to 75% of the box with broken dog biscuits. Most of the biscuits were broken into very tiny pieces.
This occurs only at this specific Safeway.

Generally clean and has decent prices when it comes to tofu. I always use self checkout so I can’t say anything about the lines.
However when I went to check the manager’s special section of the meat, it was a disaster. Not only did I find open packages of meat, but some of it was even turning green and had dried juices on it.
I know meat that’s browned a little can still be edible, but we’re talking straight up food poisoning green-​sheen here.

Finally I’ve to leave a review for this store. I’ve been disappointed many times by the costumer service, selection and quality in the past 13 years in this particular safeway. Today I realized at the check out I left my valet at home but did have my check book…
Immediately I let the cashier know that I’ve my check book but no ID with me… He said not a problem we just have to verify with a manager and call it in… After having all the other customers wait behind me in lane and having been handed over to the costumer service, after the manager was told before hand that I’ve no ID with me, I was asked for my ID again… Bottom line is that no one really knows what the procedure is in such a situation… What a waste of time… This will have been my last visit to this particular location, despite the convenience of its location for me. :/

I’ve been trying to buy a specific box of matzo in the kosher section for several weeks. The problem was that, although they had ~20 boxes, all of them had expired a few months ago (yeah, I checked every one of them). That alone is a little concerning, since matzo usually has an expiration date 3 years later, so these boxes have been around for a long time. [I know this, since I just bought some from Nob Hill and they expire in 2017.]
At one point I finally gave one of them to a cashier and told her all of the boxes were expired. She clearly didn’t care when I told her and that was proven by the presence of all of the expired boxes still there a couple weeks later.
Another time I happen to come across the store manager and told him about this. I showed him the item, and he thanked me then promptly pulled every box from the shelf and carried them to the back of the store. He said with it being empty, it will finally get ordered and replaced. Yay!
I checked back a couple weeks later, and the stock was full again. Yay? Nay! Every box was expired, with the exact same expiration date as the ones that the manager removed. I can only assume that someone took it from the back and restocked the shelf with the expired boxes. That’s so damn ridiculous! Sadly this makes we wonder how many other items throughout the store they keep restocking with expired items. Guess I’ll keep going back to Nob Hill…

I don’t have a ton of mortal enemies, but if I did a headcount I’d say about 50% of my sh*t-list consists of various chain grocery stores. Even though I’m super new to the area, Safeway has already bought itself a one-​way ticket to I-​hate-​you town.
Maybe I’m just naturally hangry, but there’s something about being around food that really makes me go all Primal Rage in places like this.
First of all, it’s expensive as sh*t. Like, I came here and left, then went to Whole Foods to save some money on the same stuff that was in better condition. In what world do we live in that I can get groceries cheaper at a Walgreens than at an actual grocery store? Welcome to CrazyTown.
Second, what’s up with the perpetual lines at every register? You can’t even get into the actual aisles because the lines run so long and so slow, blocking everything. And it’s always a thing. Go at 9am, go at 1:30pm, go at 4 in the morning — there will always be an outrageous line situation happening on all fronts here.
Third, that Safeway club card is a bunch of BS and they rule with an iron fist over giving you those discounts without your actual card on you. It’s creepy how much they care about getting your consumer info over giving you any kind of customer service.
Fourth, I came here late one night to get coffee. I walk over to the coffee aisle and a store employee looks me dead in the eye, grabs one of those nylon versions of a velvet rope, and closes the aisle in my face– literally was about 1 foot and a half away from him making full eye contact. I swear to god he had a smirk on his face when he did it. There I stood, 6-​feet away from what I wanted, unable to get it because he was going to take his sweet ass time mopping and smirking in my direction. He could have waited 10-​seconds and let me grab my stupid bag of beans, but instead he chose to be kind of a real jag about it.
Safeway, you’re dead to me.

Cost/​taste comparison of Safeway’s «Molten Chocolate Chip Cookies» vs. Trader Joe’s «Journey to the Center of the Cookie»
Go ahead and stop right there if you’re one of those people who only shops at local farmers markets…
OK, here’s my two cents about the competing products:
Round 1: At $ 4.99, Safeway’s Molten Chocolate Chip Cookies are exactly the same size as the $ 2.99 Journey to the Center of the Cookie
Winner = Trader Joe’s
Round 2: Per instructions on the back of the box, cooked two Molten Chocolate Chip Cookies for 12 minutes at 400 degrees. The outside was kinda hard and not nearly as soft and gooey as the Journey to the Center of the Cookie.
Winner = Trader Joe’s
Round 3: The parking lot at TJ’s, no matter which location we’re talking about, scares me. Whether customers are driving in said parking lot or trying to make it on foot, it’s scary.
Winner = Safeway
For this particular product Trader Joe’s takes the prize. Based on sheer value and consistency, their cookie is superior. However, Safeway is A-​OK when it comes to an overall shopping experience. Am sad to hear that they’ve been purchased by Albertson’s, and I hope that the stores remain relatively unchanged. Except for the frozen cookies, go ahead and take note, guys.