7-Eleven

Evanston is an interesting area… nice, hood, nice, hood… wear Kevlar no matter what, esp when near a 7 Eleven!
Customer Service is alright, no big deal, wide selection, hard to pull in and out off… pretty typical.

I’ve been a patron at this 7-​Eleven for many years now. Not because it’s a wonderful place for me to buy my Pepsi and/​or my cancer sticks that quietly comfort me while I ease into the day, but because it simply lives up to its identity; convenience. Nothing more, nothing less. It is truly only a convenience in that I can walk out my door and do a couple of cartwheels and I’m there. The employees are for the most part sub-​par. They rarely greet you with a smile or even acknowledge that you were the one who set off that god awful high pitched «alert» tone by simply opening the door, and god forbid walking all the way through it to give them your hard earned money for a meager «Habanada» (If you didn’t catch that reference, boo on you… do your research!). There is only one employee who has actually ever acknowledged me. He smiles and always asks how my day is going. It’s a pleasant experience when he works. Unfortunately, he doesn’t work all the time so I’m stuck with the other employees’ heavy air composed of dissatisfaction morphed with melancholy. However, the WORST part about this location is the lowlife kid (well…late 20’s perhaps) that loiters around the place trying to bum a smoke or panhandle. This location has actually lost half of my business due to him. I find myself slowly driving past the location to see if this loiterer is there. If so, I go elsewhere. If not, then I’m safe. He has been the cause of many complaints by many customers so far yet clearly no action has been taken to relieve this nuisance. The employees allow him to hang out inside with them or outside with the not-​so-​willing customers, and they don’t do ANYTHING even though they are well aware of his intention. I don’t care how bored you are or that you’re too lazy at work to do anything about it because the boredom will only get worse if your actions, or lack of, minimize your flow of customers. Keeping customers’ satisfied, comfortable, and safe is a simple business ethic that takes more common sense than actual job training. Figure it out! We simply don’t want to bother having to deal with a lowlife kid who is doing nothing with his life, asking for money/​smokes/​whatever, and is perfectly capable physically and for the most part mentally, and has nothing better to do than to drive away YOUR business. Your store bum should NOT be our problem, it should be YOURS! After all of that, I’ve given this location 2 stars instead of 1 simply because they have always had my «necessities» in stock when I need them and for the nice employee who is occasionally on shift. That is all. Thank you.