Harry & David Orchard Store

A nice surprise.
Checked the mail and received a box of Harry & David goodies for Christmas. Came with a variety of brownies and cookies. The cookies were tasty but not all that soft and chewy. A bit too sweet. The brownies had a nice consistency but also slightly too sweet.
I’ve visited Harry & David stores in the past and have always found their products to be on the pricier side. This gift was much appreciated and we still enjoyed each sweet treat.

they are so expensive. 1lb of cookies — $ 20, 10oz of popcorns — $ 10… moreover they charge the shipping per item — $ 10 each plus warm weather protection $ 10 and it is not overnight shipping. I bought 1 bag of cookies and 1 bag of popcorns and paid $ 30 for shipping. I really don’t understand what’s on their mind…

We got a 3 months fruit of the month basket as a gift, before the first one showed up we thought, what a great gift, we decided to gift to to our friends as one of their wedding present. What an embarrassing let down. the week later we received our first month’s basket — 3 mangoes. We realized we made a mistake to send it as a gift ourselves. considering the value of this gift — we paid almost $ 60 for 3 pounds of fruits. Considering the «earthly» contribution — not only are the fruits coming in the least green friendly packaging, they are shipped to us from Oregon to NY, which means it’s far from being Local. I usually research my expenses and don’t just impulsively shop, this one is a definite flop.

I have only had the pleasure of vendors sending these gifts to the office. I am very grateful for these delights.
Presentation, presentation, presentation is their key and Harry and David surely has this. We received the Founders Favorite Banquet Gift Basket which contained:
4 – 6 Royal Riviera Pears
2 Apples
Havarti Cheese (7 oz.)
Beef Summer Sausage (8 oz.)
Crisp Gourmet Crackers (4.5 oz.)
Raspberry Galettes (5.25 oz.)
Milk Chocolate Moose Munch Snack (6 oz.)
Classic Recipe Pepper and Onion Relish (11.5 oz.)
Assorted Pear Chocolates (3 oz.)
Bing Cherry Chocolates (6 oz.)
Everything was fresh and delicious. I can not wait for next year to get treated by these gift baskets again, because for the price of $ 60 bucks I do not mind being treated instead of being the gift giver ;)

I decided to buy a nice box of holiday goodies to send to my soon-​to-​be in-​laws, and, being familiar with the Harry & David brand via their catalogue, I stopped into their Orchard store, which is only open for the holiday season. I was impressed with the array of choices: fresh pears, all sorts of dried fruit, nuts, countless flavors of popcorn, pretzels, and chocolates. They’re on the expensive side, to be sure, but, honestly, what do you expect from a gourmet specialty store? At any rate, I put together an assortment of treats to send in one of the large boxes that they offer at the store. So far, so good. .. but then, the line to have the boxes wrapped was absolutely endless, and, when I finally got to the front of it, I understood why: several of the staff members in charge of doing the wrapping and the processing of the shipments were, quite frankly, incompetent. I had to clarify a million times to them where I was sending the box, when it needed to arrive, what type of wrapping I wanted on it, etc. I know that the others in line before me experienced the same phenomenon, which is why it took so long. At any rate, eventually, the process was done. .. or so I thought. A week later (two days before the package was supposed to arrive,) I stopped in, just to double-​check, since I happened to be in the neighborhood. Well, as it turns out, the store had lost track of the paperwork for the packaging. Luckily, they still had my purchase info on file, and still had the package. They were nice enough to send it off with overnight service at no extra charge to me, and they gave me a free box of dark chocolate-​covered blueberries for my trouble. The woman who was in charge of customer service was incredibly nice and accommodating, and extremely apologetic when she had to break the bad news to me. So, the store gets some serious plus-​points for that. Altogether, my experience averages out thus: high prices and incompetent packing merit one star. The customer service department and the quality of the food merit five stars. Average it out, and it gets three.

I have been a huge fan of Harry & David for years now and am so glad they’ve set up shop on 5^th avenue.
I stopped in twice over the past week for host/​holiday gifts and found the employees incredibly helpful and friendly. There are samples of their popular items scattered around the spacious store – Moose Munch (addictive caramel popcorn), Cookies, Truffles, Spreads & Pretzel Sticks.
They have great ‘bento box’ gift wrap so you can create personalized gifts for any price range.
*the royal riviera pears are incredibly juicy & sweet