Kroger

NEVER GOING BACK!!!
Today was the day of my nightmarish trip to the Birmingham Kroger and my absolute last straw. I have declared that today is the last day that Kroger will ever get another dollar out of me ever again. Oh where do I begin. First off the entire layout of the store is just very odd and quirky. I was harassed and subjected to cop style questioning by an employee for going back and fourth to the yogurt section and changing out some cups of yogurt too many times. The reason I did this was because I changed my mind on flavors, and then swapped some of them out for a better expiration date and he gave me a very hard time about it. The quality and freshness of the produce is disappointing. I have to go on a long treasure hunt just to find a decent celery stalk or bag of grapes. Then we have the employee issue. Now some of the employees are very friendly and helpful; but most of them are rude, incompetent, and get an attitude if you don’t immediately move out of their way while you are trying to shop. I find that most of the employees here have a typical Michigan bad «union mentality» attitude. This location deserves to be shut down and replaced with a more upscale grocery store chain that would be a better fit for downtown Birmingham. I would love to see a Plum Market or Trader Joe’s take over this premium location. Oh and by the way more great news. The cashier informed me that when the horrendous Royal Oak location closes due to the demolition of the dump plaza at 13 Mile and Woodward all those awful employees will be absorbed by the Birmingham location.

Nice enough Kroger. It’s pretty clean and has a nice selection, but I’ve been a little spoiled by all the newly renovated Kentucky ones. A remodel is probably not too far away for this one. The can and bottle return is pretty efficient, though — we miss this in Kentucky so we always volunteer to return our Michigander family’s cans!

I’m more than a fan. Again, I wasn’t very complimentary about the older store, but I’m a «huge» fan now. Just returned home at 8:30 pm after a short trip. There were NO out-​of-​stocks for anything I was interested in and that NEVER happened before. Always felt that I had to shop early in the morning just after the night crew stocked the shelves. The employees are pleasant, available, and every so helpful. Nothing like the employees of the old store. So happy with the new layout, the wider aisles, and above all the selection, particularly for healthy and organic foods.
Keep it up!!! I’ll keep coming back!

This Kroger is infinitely better than its compatriot on 13 and Woodward (the Beaumont Kroger as I like to call it). It’s clean, organized and friendly. The frozen section is weird. Things are in the frozen chicken section that don’t belong there, like veggie burgers and other odd things. Otherwise the produce section is great, the organic section is okay, and the place is generally quite reasonably organized.

This is probably one of the weirdest Krogers I’ve ever been to. I’ve been here a couple times now and I still can’t figure out the best way to get into the parking lot. The back parking lot has a giant slope towards the door so you’re either going to be trying to stop your cart from rolling into the store without you or getting one heck of a workout when you’re pushing your groceries back to your car.
The selection’s pretty average for a Kroger. All the produce looked nice and fresh! There’s a sushi bar, a ton of fancy cheeses, and a pretty impressive alcohol section. The aisle layouts leave something to be desired though — once you start getting towards the dairy the frozen food aisles run perpendicular to the rest of them and it feels disjointed.
The plus is that it’s down the street from my office, but otherwise I don’t think I’d make a habit of shopping here.

Good Kroger. They’ve got a good selection of healthy foods. Big deli, bakery area and there’s a Starbucks on the Maple Street side – super friendly employees.
The store has two entrances, two sets of registers so it can be a challenge to orient yourself the first busty or two.

This is a funny Kroger because it is in one of the wealthiest cities in Michigan, yet it is smaller, more limited, than other Krogers in the area. This is fine if you need to stop and shop real quick. They have a decent produce section and all of their deli products are boars head brand. There is no real prepared foods section, just an area to get some tiny rotisserie chickens. The best part is the lines are always pretty short so you can get out quickly. The parking lot is small so be prepared for some jams.

I’m not going to go through the labors of reviewing both the Birmingham and Bloomfield locations, since I’m rarely out in Michigan anymore but Kroger’s (yes, we say all of our grocery stores with a possessive out here, it’s a thing we do) is easily a go-​to supermarket for anything and everything. Also, booze is CHEAP AS HELL HERE. Do not bother going to Papa Joe’s for alcohol. Though, if you want a fancier bottle of wine, you may want to do so. I am amazed because I see bottles I can get in Queens and Brooklyn for like $ 7 – 8 (cheap) and find them here for like $ 4 – 5. Holy schmoly. Where am I? The Midwest. Also, keep note of the craft beer shelf. There’s a build your own pack section that made me incredibly giddy because Bell’s doesn’t ship to New York still.
Produce seemed fresh. Huge variety. I mean, huge. I get lost in Kroger’s to the point where I had to call my sister’s cellphone to find her multiple times over. The cashiers/​baggers seemed fine as well. Saw some Unilocal complaints. So I don’t get that. Also, if you feel like being an asshole for the day, there is a self check out area.

The cashier whose line I went through was totally incompetent. She seemed to be slow on purpose but I can’t prove it. The bathroom was totally disgusting. There was an adequate amount of help, some engaged in conversation with other help and not doing much. Can’t one of them put on a hazardous waste suit and go in there and clean it? The sloping parking lot is hard to navigate. It is good that they hire handicapped people for jobs such as bagging but they tend to go unsupervised at times. Overall, it is not a good shopping experience.

I stopped in early on Sunday to grab ingredients for a hangover quiche and I was just a little bummed with the lack of selection of ingredients they had. Aside from that this location is better than the 13 mile and Woodward spot in that it’s brighter and nicer looking but if you need to go Krogering make the trip to 15 and Coolidge.

Worst grocery store. I cannot believe it’s located in Birmingham. The service and selection is so poor. Some of the people who work there are very nice, but 75% of them are incompetent and rude.

I hate this Kroger. I’m not very fond of Kroger as a chain in general, but this particular one is the most aggravating one I’ve been in. It’s weirdly laid out for one. The parking is just weird and I’ve nearly gotten in an accident there twice due to the confusion and the slope of the lot. The prices are very high and they are often out of things.
But the worst part is that EVERY time I come here the lines are hideously long. They’ll have a bunch of uscans open and just ONE cashier and a huge line at that one cashier since everyone seems to hate the uscans. The uscans there are so prone to problems and always requiring you to get the shared cashier to reset something or enter a code and he/​she is always busy helping someone else, and then when they finally get there seem a bit clueless as to waht to do.
I also just really wish the big box stores would go back to having proper sales rather than having the discounts you can only get with the card. I’ve got so many cards from so many stores I can never keep track of them all, and I resent having to tie my purchases to my identity just to get the sale. They’ve recently changed things so they don’t even have a store card, and if you don’t have a card you have to get out of line and go to the customer service desk, you can’t even get one IN the line.
I’ve gone WAY out of my way to go to value center or HIllers or Hollywood to avoid this stupid card thing. In an ideal world I’d do all my shopping at Trader Joes… they have WONDERFUL friendly helpful staff and NO uscans and good prices… but they also only have certain things.

They have most everything you need and also have a Chase branch which makes it convenient. The staff is helpful and friendly.

Kroger in Birmingham is my favorite in the area. It’s Kroger. Not my favorite but the most convenient. They have a better than average display of seafood. Great cheese selection rivaling that of Nino Salvaggios and we stop in for sushi from the sushi bar quite often. Nice wine selection. Parking is abysmal.

After a nightmarish experience at the Kroger on Coolidge and Woodward, I had higher hopes for the Birmingham branch of the chain just a few miles up the street. Like the new Hollywood crop of It Girls, Birmingham’s Kroger looks plenty nicer from the exterior. But is the beauty and quality more than skin deep, or am I being distracted by the brick exterior and fancy dress?
This Kroger is no Zooey Deschanel but something more of an Avril Lavigne dressed up in a designer label. She may look pretty from a distance, but all those strange angles and quirks just aren’t working for me and I think they’re hiding something strange. And not in the good way.
First of all, getting into the parking lot is a pain. Despite my GPS’ suggestion, making a right turn onto Maple from Woodward immediately forbids me from entering the parking lot. After meandering like a newbie photog around Kodak Theatre, I finally found my way in where I was supposed to be via the rear entrance, which I think is in fact the main entrance. A handsome autumn display greeted me, but no trash can to dispose of gum wrappers, and the carts were stowed away oddly. I ended up meandering my way through the floral department towards the meat case, and the assortment there is rather limited. It’s small, and they do not carry ground turkey or a fair number of basic staples I was on the lookout for.
The layout of the store in general feels very chopped up, with some aisles going in one direction and then the back half of the store past the dairy section in a completely different arrangement, like they were forgotten and tacked on as an afterthought. Trying to locate items can be a tad tricky because of this and it’s a slog to run back and get shredded cheese if you remember at the last minute you forgot something, while the frozen food section might as well be in Uruguay for all it’s off by itself near the cashiers’ area. I don’t understand why the manager had all the «Managers’ Specials» (marked down items) after the checkouts, either, since it essentially prevented me from perusing the items on the long tables because I already checked out using the U-​scans.
Prices are on par or higher than other Krogers and at least it looks a lot cleaner. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is on sale and what isn’t, if you’re used to tags that hang down rather than lie directly over the shelf label.
Because I went during midday it wasn’t too rushed but this is not a store I want to have to hurry through. Items are scattered in places, sometimes lacking (no sugar cubes? Really? And no tart shells when your other stores have them). For some basics it is good but the hassle of getting in and out means I would rather drive the two miles to Troy for a much better laid out store.

Who reviews a Kroger?! It may be weird, but this Kroger deserves it. This is by far the wonkiest grocery store lay out ever. I used to work at a restaurant nearby and I often was in buying various things that we may have been short of for the day. I hated going there. The parking sucks, both in the front AND the back. There is no convenient way to get into either of the parking lots. And yes there is a front and a back entrance. The front facing Maple contains only U –Scans though, but also represents one of the stars for this review by also housing a Starbucks. The back has U-​Scans and checkout.
Overall this Kroger is just really oddly and somewhat inconveniently laid out.

This Kroger location is a little confusing because the «front» of the store is actually the parking lot area that you don’t see from the street, and the «back» is the area with the pharmacy and the coffee place which you see from Maple Rd.
Products are easy to find. Store is well organized. Staff is helpful. They let you use duplicates of the same coupon without making a fuss. You’ll get out quickly if you take advantage of the u-​scan instead of the registers.
Also there’s a redbox inside for movie rentals… :)

The Birmingham Kroger pales in comparison to the one in Troy. Not only is the store poorly laid out, but they also always seem to be out of the very ingredients I need. One one occasion, for example, they did not have any fresh basil; on another, they did not have any fresh cremini mushrooms, chicken breasts with the bone on (which I normally don’t get, but this recipe called for it), or any fresh garlic left. The lines seem to be long at times, as they don’t always have enough people at counters to accommodate the before-​dinner rush. This place is only good if it’s local to you and you don’t feel like trekking to a larger Kroger someplace else.

It is so unfortunate that Detroit has no major chain supermarkets. If you go «in the hood,» you’re taking a major risk with food quality. After several visits to the Kroger at 13 & Woodward where I was unimpressed, I ventured to this Maple & Woodward location.
The aisles were well stock and the prices… well the prices reflect the cost of bring the goods to the consumer. At least I felt the food and other items were good quality even with my grumbling about the prices. Some of my fellow shoppers in the store had the B’ham snootiness, but hey my money is green and I can go anywhere.
All in all, I get in and get out in under an 45 mins. I just hate the 12 mile drive to grocery shop.

They had a cashier go crazy and flip out on customers and threaten to kill everybody if they did not STFU. They had another employee peeping through holes in the ceiling tiles at women in the bathroom until the whole ceiling came crashing down with him on it. They had another cashier who’s colostomy bag had a hole in it and sprayed feces all over the belt with people’s food on it. They had a real live toothless crackwhore of a manager who got into a fist fight with a cashier. They had a customer sh! t her pants IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ISLE because the idiotic employees wouldn’t let her use the employee bathroom since the one available customer bathroom (a health code violation in itself because there needs to be TWO customer bathrooms) was out of order due to another scat related accident.
They also have a lot of celebrities there too if you care about that sort of thing.
Of course, all that is in the past they would say. They would say that «everything is better now» because they changed the name to «Fresh Fare» but it’s not because it’s in name only. The place is still an abysmal place to shop which is sad because of the location.
So, once again, management needs to be scrapped and better people need to be hired like the ones at all the other grocery stores in the area.
But maybe they shouldn’t change a thing. The John Watersesque theme of continuous filth, rudeness, drama, anger, poverty and racial tension in such an upscale neighborhood is quite entertaining! It’s Jerry Springer of Beverly Hills. It’s the virtual intersection of 8 Mile Rd and Rodeo Drive. «crime is beauty»