Restaurant Depot

My friend has a business license so I get to come shop here in bulk tax free! Lots of good deals… u can spend an entire day in here. Although some of the things I come here for runs of out stock quite often…(zours and chocolate panda). Overall great spot, nice employees. Sure beats a regular grocery store!

Over all I love restaurant depots but particularly with this location I am not impressed. It’s a heaven for restaurant owners and visit four/​five times a week. The difference between this one and the one in valley is personal touch. Nobody cares to know me here but it’s totally opposite there. People even know me and lot of others by name who shop there. Monthly I spend over 15 000 and personal guest services sometimes ease my pain lol

Restaurant Depot is the place to be when you’re looking for the best prices for your restaurant equipments. Mauricio Hernandez is a really helpful manager. He will spend his time teaching you about what’s best for your restaurant needs and he will make you understand how his equipments run and work. Your time/​money is well spent here if you want invest yourself with knowledgeable people who knows what running a restaurant business is all about.

OK, quick one.
If you own or work for a restaurant, you can indeed find amazing deals. A lot of the stuff is a lot less expensive than from any other of your vendors.
However, they don’t have everything and some of the quality is not that great.
They do however have stuff (lot of Asian products) that none of your regular vendors (even big ones like Sysco) carry, so kudos for them.
It’s a bit of a drive and these days you have to place a minimum of $ 1,000 for picking up an order you faxed in the day before, so if you can’t meet that minimum, you have to go around and get everything yourself and stand in line to check out.
Their checkout process is the worst. Slow and you always need a manager to check if they cashier wrung up the right amount of items. This is really stupid.
Why don’t you use cashiers that you can trust?
It really takes too much extra time and it is unnecessary. They should do away with it. Honestly, I hope they’re reading this and will listen.
I mean, really, most people would check their receipt and if it’s wrong, they can complain before they leave. The manager sits right there by the exit, anyway.
I really find it almost offending, but it’s definitely annoying.
The thing that earned their 3^rd star from me is that they started carrying wine. They carry wines from some of your major distributors, but they also created a couple of their own labels at amazingly affordable prices, that are not available anywhere else and the quality is actually really good. I had some of our customers blind taste the Chianti we carry against their label (Armeli) and everyone liked the RD Chianti better. And the price is half as much as we pay for the one we carry.
Same with their Chilean wines (Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon) and the Australian Shiraz/​Cabernet blend.
I am actually quite impressed by their selection. They do also carry some very expensive high-​end stuff.
Justin, the wine guy actually knows his stuff and can recommend anyone great selections to their needs/​menu. He lets you taste wines if he see you’re serious about buying some. If you carry at least 4 of their own labels, they can also create and print your wine list free of charge. You can’t beat that.
So, overall, great place to shop (you do need a business license and a resale permit to shop there) and save money. Once you can figure out the timing, you can save a lot of money. They have everything a restaurant could ever need (cleaning supplies, packaging materials, equipment, cooking utensils, etc.) on top of all the food products. They also carry fresh produce.
BUT, they really need to work on their checkout procedures!!!

As a family business owner I am there at least once or twice a week but when it comes down to service they have their own definition of SLOW! Very Very SLOW!!!
Weather it’s an empty pallet space where the canola oil is when there is a whole pallet up above then waiting for a ½ hour for someone to get a fork lift to take it down to the check out process where many items don’t ring up on the register which you have to wait 10 minutes for them to find it to waiting an additional 10 minutes to wait for someone to double check your order to make sure the cashier did not over or under charge/​count you its just slow on top of slow.
If it was any other day but Sunday, I’d be driving the extra mileage to Costco Business Center in Hawthorne. Although it’s twice as far, the pricing is better, the people are nicer, and it would take me about the same amount of time if not less to do my shopping. Something for Restaurant Depot to ponder for future improvement.

Real 1S.
This place has everything you need but customer service. Only one guy knows where anything is… if he’s out to lunch… they are clueless. Their method of checking out, which causes serious turtle lines, is ridiculous. They might as well use stone tablets to ring up customers because it’s so slow. First the cashier yells to the supervisor who stands near another screen near the exit for some code. Then the cashier rings up each item… marks each item… which often is plenty. Then yells again for a supervisor to double-​check her work. Then she waits for the credit card machine that is shared between two registers. Even though it has the word Depot… it’s nothing like Home Depot or Costo’s method of doing things.

I have a love/​hate relationship with this store. I love they have all my needs covered but when it comes time to check out sometimes I wish I could just do it myself, since some of the cashiers are not as fast as others. Overall though i must say the depot ROCKS!

Restaurant Depot makes me feel like Costco and Smart and Final had a child. An odd looking child that stocks whole frozen goats, but a hybrid of the two nonetheless.
If you come to Restaurant Depot, be prepared to show your business papers, or you’ll be missing out on the discounts ahead. Inside the building (which is connected to «Jetro» in one giant building), there are more options in to go ware than could be imagined. And you’d think that with so many environmentally friendly options in to go ware that they’d also carry more organic or Fair Trade options in ingredients, but alas, that is not the case. Hopefully that will change in the future.

It didn’t have some stuff that I needed but in overall, it was a pretty BIG place.
The workers were nice !
This one worker didn’t speak English but Spanish so I got a chance to talk to him in Spanish :)
It was really cool :)

Let me add to the previous post. It is a one-​stop shop for restauraunts, café’s, caterers, and really anyone with a business and a business license.
Wholesale prices are amazing – but they don’t have the gourmet selections that a Surfas might have. They are the «bread-​and-​butter» basics place to get produce, fish/​meats/​poultry, various basic ingredients, baking ingredients, as well as other food-​service supplies.
I’m a bakery owner, and this place has helped me out in a pinch (e.g. when my distributors can’t make a delivery when I need it). I’m actually heading there now!

If you don’t know what is is, I’ll tell you. It’s a restaurant supply wholesaler so you need a business license to get in and a resale license to buy tax free. If you don’t have either of those don’t bother, you are not really missing anything. Between Surfas, Smart & Final and Costco I suppose, you can get most of the same stuff as thy have in here. So, nothing really special.