Safeway

Customer service at this store is often non-​existent. Today I used the internet phone number provided to see if a certain product is still carried in this Safeway as «mine» doesn’t carry it anymore. I live about 3 miles from the store and didn’t want to drive there for nothing. The number given is the pharmacy number although that is not indicated. The pharmacist gave me the supposed correct number as he didn’t know how to transfer me. Each call I make costs me 10 cents so I didn’t really appreciate that. I called the number of the store and pushed the appropriate buttons to get me to customer service only to get the telephone company message to hang up and redial. Probably no one was at the service desk, not uncommon at this particular Safeway. The store is never busy when I go there. I think I understand why. Too bad. Safeway really need to get on top of the mismanagement of customer service, etc. Guess I’ll go to the Georgetown store, more out of my way but sure to have what I am looking for.

this safeway is disturbingly gross.
i was in the area and looked up the nearest grocery store because i needed a few things quickly. had i read these reviews, id have taken the drive over to georgetown safeway like i usually do.
many shelves were bare. the produce section was full of wilted greens and nearly-​rotting fruit. the meat section made me nervous, i definitely wouldn’t recommend buying any perishables here.
half the clientele was comprised of stereotypical crazies. the type of folks who wear clear raincoats year round and push little carts that are filled to the brim with hoarder-​type crap. well. i guess this place is good for people watching.
there was ONE cashier and a line that was probably 15 deep.
terrible.

Horrible customer service!
Very dark unlit parking lot
Selection of items they carry is very limited and the produce section don’t even bother. Rotten and smells bad.
Don’t waste your time might as well go to giant or Trader Joe’s or if you’re up for it Safeway in Georgetown is the best!

I can’t believe that this store has not been shut down by the board of health. I stopped by last night, as I thought that perhaps with the competition of the new Giant down the street they would have put forth a little bit of effort. Nope. It’s horrible. ALL of the peaches were rotting and there were literally swarms of fruit flies around all of the fruit. You could probably garbage pick fresher fruit out of a dumpster. There was one checkout lane open and it moved like molasses. Never going again.

This place sucks. I never get through checkout in under 10 minutes which isn’t the end of the world but is annoying during a work lunch break. I also get mischarged and the cashiers have screwed up multiple times

Ridiculous lines (most of the time) and rarely more then one or two open lines. Typically the express lane is the only one open so even with one item you may wait for 15+ minutes. They often block exit doors breaking fire code.

So this is pretty much the worst grocery store I’ve ever been in.
Expect to wait in line for 20 – 30 minutes easily because they only have 1 to 2 registers open at a time. Then you’ll be greeted by some one who is indifferent to you at best, although they’re often times outright rude.
The produce is not fresh by any stretch of the imagination. Its not that hard to find wilted, rotting, past due, or moldy food in this store.
Its also dirty. So dirty. Its only redeeming quality is that its near by. Still, I’d much rather go to the giant a little further down Wisconsin.
Save yourself some frustration and stay away.

They have limited inventory and the lines are always horribly long. Hope it gets torn down soon.

Yep, this is a Safeway from a bygone era. Not well-​stocked, and no self-​checkout lanes to mitigate the lack of people working the registers. It’s closing within the foreseeable future for a school expansion. It’s also on a bit of a weird intersection and not easy to get to. No reason to go looking for it really.

After waiting in line for 20 mins after a difficult customer I was greated with a hurried and irritated tone. I was disappointed in this seeing as I’m from the Midwest and the employees at our Safeways are always cordial. It was not my fault that customer was difficult and I did not appreciate the displaced frustration.
Also, it’s incredibly difficult to find a cart or carrying basket here.

One of the worst stores ever. A shopping trip here is like slamming your finger in a car door– excruciating. Kind of like going to the Post Office, but with food.
During a recent visit, I encountered an all-​out confrontation /​argument between the manager & several employees, and an obviously irate customer in front of the store (parking lot fire lane). Not sure what was going on, but another customer passing by chimed in: «She’s (manager) never any help– worst manager ever!!» With this greeting, I entered the store and found, as always, two cashiers on duty, 16 people in line. I turned around and walked out.
A trip here guarantees a bad experience all around– past-​date merchandise, long lines & lazy uncaring employees with major attitude issues. On a different visit, I saw an older male employee who finally opened another check-​out line (an obvious HUGE inconvenience to him, asking him to actually do his job), and speak to a customer (an elderly lady) in line very condescendingly, as if he were attempting to coax a dog (complete with «come here, boy» hand gestures), to come to his line.
The physical facility is long overdue for a major remodel but that won’t happen, since the neighboring Georgetown Day School for the Financially Endowed just bought the property (as well as the VW dealer), obviously planning for future expansion. When this temple to dysfunction finally goes down I hope there is a block party held, where the long– suffering customers can enjoy watching as their grievances are addressed by the wrecking ball.
I go to the Georgetown store, where the employees are not much better, but the selection is.
It’s about time the Safeway /​Giant cabal had their strangle hold on the DC grocery scene broken by opening a few Wegmans in town.

Meh, I’m not impressed with this place. Food is very difficult to find here, there are hardly any staff to help customers, and the store is not kept very clean. The food is expensive and the service is not friendly. I won’t visit again.

I like the staff. I know many of them. They are friendly and try to do the best they can. I only wish that corporate would treat this store better. The coolers are often broken, the produce is wilted, and basics are frequently out of stock. I keep coming back like an idiot, but the last four times I have had to make a special trip to Whole Foods because I considered the kale inedible, because they were out of milk, or because they had so many artichoke hearts but no hearts of Palm. Please Safeway — your staff and your customers would be happier if you treated us better. We all know that you plan to tear the building down, eventually, but please try to treat us with dignity and supply us with good quality food until you do.

This place is awful. Expect a huge line anytime that you go there. They never have enough people working the registers. I have no idea why.

I’ll echo the many comments here regarding long lines EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to this store, day or night. They are significantly more expensive than Giant, so you would think that they’d make up for it with good customer service. The express lines are filled with people having more than 15 items, so of course, they don’t enforce that rule either.

Wow. This place is so mismanaged it’s like a joke until you realize that nobody is laughing.
Here’s a bunch of stuff to dislike about this store: it’s old and outdated, the selection is poor, at no time do they seem willing to open more than two registers, the cashiers are slower than molasses… I could go on.
But here’s the reason I won’t be back and you should probably avoid this store at all costs: serious quality control issues. See my attached photo that I took earlier today. This is cheddar cheese in the dairy section, marked as sell by April 21, 2013. That’s nearly 7 months ago if you’re playing along at home. And it wasn’t just one piece. I picked up the next 4 chunks of cheese behind it and every single one was past best. I’m talking visible mold growing on the cheese.
Are. You. Kidding. Me?!
The fact that either seven months has passed with no Safeway employee noticing the cheese literally rotting away is seriously disturbing. Or if someone stocked a shelf with molding cheese? Even worse.
The whole thing calls into question every perishable item in the store. Don’t risk it. Stay far away from this place.

I can’t even begin to describe how much I hate this Safeway. It’s just down the block from my work so I frequent it way more often than I care to when I need to grab something quickly.
I believe they are going through a renovation soon, so this may not be relevant for much longer, but the selection is terrible. I could deal with shitty inventory if the customer service was on point but the customer service does not exist. They regularly have only one cashier working with a line that is easily 10 customers deep. There have been several occasions when customers have complained to be told that «everyone else is on break». If you are worried that the «not my problem» attitude is in danger of extinction, you will be happy to know it is alive and thriving at this Safeway.
If there is any way you can avoid this Safeway, do it. If you are in the same boat as I and rely on it for unforeseen needs, I take comfort in knowing that I am not the only one suffering.

If you ever find yourself in the Tenleytown and in need of groceries, go to the Whole Foods. This Safeway is one I had to suffer through many months of being lost, not understanding the completely illogical placement of foods in the place, and the long lines because there are rarely more than one or two cashiers open for business. What’s going on?! The only good thing about this Safeway is that now I’m extremely far from it and don’t have to buy my groceries here anymore.

Being the closest supermarket not named «Giant @ Newark and Wisconsin,» or Whole Foods, I frequent on occasion. Its far and away better than that Giant. But so is just about anything.
Regardless, this Safeway is decent all around. The produce is just O.K., nothing special, the meat is fair, though I probably wouldn’t get much more there. The fish — GROSS, i wouldn’t eat that with someone else’s mouth. The regular stock of food is pretty good, I haven’t had much trouble looking for an item. The Deli counter pretty much sucks and has a weak stock of meats.
Overall, location makes it ok, but its really not that great.

6^th and FINAL stop of the night on the search for food coloring is this Safeway.
(Yes, the 6^th stop; 1^st was Giant in Van Ness, 2^nd was CVS in Van Ness, 3^rd was Safeway by Chevy Chase Circle, 4^th was Giant in Friendship Heights, 5^th was Lia’s — that was just a desperate attempt that only yielded being made fun of by my chefs and this Safeway was my last chance for food coloring.) How did I get to all of these places? Combo of bus riding and actually running/​jogging– since I wasn’t actually going to make it to the gym.
Anyway, back to it. I found they only had the neon gel colors but after asking an employee, she led me to the drops. FINALLLLLY.
So yay for the helpful woman and being able to head home. (I did jog the whole way home, btw… and yes, all for just food coloring.)