Gelson’s Market

I really had mixed feelings about writing this review. I don’t write many but I felt I had to.
I’ve been shopping at this market for over 25 yrs & have always been Soo pleased to go in & see the same friendly faces & also get such great service from their ‘long time’ employees. But very recently (the last few months) things have started changing. And not for the better. The people that check u out are actually rude. No eye contact at all the last time I was in until asking if I wanted the receipt. None! Like u were invisible. No hello/​good bye, nothing…
Very unlike my experiences all these years. Even though it is a chain market our Gelson’s was always like a neighborhood place.
I don’t know what’s going on w/​management but it’s not ‘so nice’ going in anymore.
On the flip side John in the meat/​seafood dept is great & always a pleasure to have help u. Xay is always helpful & friendly.
What can I say…

Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude. Rude.
Staff. Ive never been compelled to leave
a Unilocal review as I have been coming here.

Sometimes on the weekends I do instacart so I shop at this Gelsons a lot! The workers are friendly and tremendously helpful, especially, Jack! He’s the bomb! :)

After stopping by Westwood, my buddy and I were on our way to Echo Park/​Silverlake area. I needed a pick-​me-​up, and stopped by this Gelsons along our route.
I’ve had the Coca Cola’s green label soda in a glass bottle, and was craving it. Unfortunately, this Gelsons did not have any of that drink, so I opted for an iced coffee in a can.
It was a fast transaction, and after a quick restroom stop, I was out the door. The store was clean and well stocked (I’ll say this, even if they didn’t have the soda I was looking for). The staff was friendly, and the store is located in a safe area. Their parking lot was small, but it was later in the evening so no issues with parking were encountered.
The coffee was ok, but I’d rather stop by Coffee Bean or Starbucks the next time around.

Prices are expensive, especially for produce.
Their salad bar is great for a quick stop.
I wish the deli would get some new foods, both hot and cold. Their sandwiches are good and come with a side from the deli.
Checkout is not quick, but not slow, either.

You pay a little more here, but the selection is excellent and the staff goes the extra mile. Better meat and produce than the competition.
We custom ordered a birthday cake and the staff accommodated our every wish.

On impulse I tried their house-​brand «Gelson’s Finest» sourdough bread. It comes as a baguette and demi baguette.
I am a sourdough snob and I was impressed. It’s not the sourdough we used to get in San Francisco back in the day; still, it has a pretty respectable flavor. Given the many inferior sourdoughs I’ve sampled over the years, Gelson’s Finest is satisfying and would go great with cheese, chili or just toasted with butter. It lacks a really crisp, dark-​brown crust but this can be overlooked. It is vastly superior to the flavorless sourdough bread from a certain very prominent local bakery. I would definitely buy it again.
I also like the hot bar in this store. It’s great if you choose well. I agree that Gelson’s doesn’t have the lowest prices in town. Some of their prices are tolerable and some are outrageous. Maybe some Hollywood tycoons can afford to do all of their grocery shopping here (I once spotted Joan Collins shopping in this store a long time ago).

Gelsons has to be the most expensive grocery store in Los Angles, literally some items are double suggested retail price, for instance Cabot low fat cheese has an MSRP of $ 3.29 and at gelsons it’s an Even $ 7.
The reason they are expensive is location and there old fashioned way of doing business, which is no automated check out lanes and someone bags your grocers, I still feel like I am being price gouged every time I shop there, but I feel less bad knowing the store is at least adding to our economy by employing more people, although I know there wages could not be all that much.
With that said, gelsons has a great hot food bar, great fresh sliced pizza, an awesome salad bar, and the cutest independent bakery and coffee shop inside.
I am very happy to have them in west hollywood as few grocery stores can afford to operate there, so despite there extremely high prices, I would rather have a super expensive grocery store than no grocery store at all.

I have always thought of Gelson’s as a comparable to Whole Foods from a price perspective and by that definition my statement holds true. The selection is meant to be more on the narrow side, sort of a neighborhood convenient urban market but elevated. Where I have to give Gelson’s 4.5 star rating is around the holiday time, namely Thanksgiving. I literally called on Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, and was able to order a very popular 12lb. pre-​made turkey. Up until this point Gelson’s could do no wrong. The service was great and amidst the turkey day crowd everyone was super friendly. But let’s face it, the ultimate judgement is in how tasty will that bird be when I serve it to my guest? Do I take full credit if it taste amazing or will I blame it all on Gelson’s chef? Fast forward to Thanksgiving evening after dinner and watching the cowboys getting killed, everyone could not stop commenting on how amazing the turkey was. I did what none of you would do… I took collaboration credit only and told the truth. It was mostly Gelson’s work. Good job guys. Next year for the extra cost and less kitchen work, I’d do it all over again.

Things I love about gelsons! Salad bar, parking, convenience, friendliness of majority of staff (minus produce guy today). I also love the layout of the store which allows for quick shopping and the selection of some specialty treats that many bigger box stores don’t have. However, Gelsons is quite overpriced and today it was the worst. My pomegranate experience ruined my Saturday. There was only ten poms and none of them looked good, but my boo really wanted them and would have killed me if I came home without them. so I asked the produce guy which were good and he responded with,” well there’s not much selection”. he did not smile, nor move to show me which were good. So I picked out three. After a twelve minute wait in line (the wait was because those good ol 5 dollar off coupons that take the checker much time, where as if they charged less than crazy they wouldn’t need to mail coupons), I paid 17 dollars for three pomegranates. That’s more than dinner for three in many states in the USA. I left dejected and sorrowful

Great bakery. Love Gelson’s flowers. Problem… They ALWAYS have the same hot food out. C’mon guys and ladies — pleeeeeeeease mix it up a little.
Tilapia in butter, orange chicken, chicken breasts… Blah, blah, blah. VARIETY PEOPLE! Variety! That’s all :-)

This is a color-​enhanced photograph of the inside of Gelson’s West Hollywood. I’m in the store at least 3 – 4 times per day, and wanted to give a little back. Many thanks to all. See you in an hour or so!
Andrea Reider

The stuff they have for sale is good but the people are rude and you need a key for the bathroom which is annoying.

To me they went from 5 stars that I gave them in February to 4 at the beginning of the month to 3 now. This used to be the only supermarket I went to in LA/​Weho for over 20 years. However late this past Friday night I again saw dogs who pretty clearly were not therapy dogs and management just lets the owners stroll right in with their dogs. In fact word seems to be out that this is the place to go with dogs. There are dogs in the store just about every time I go there. However when I go to Pavilions, which I started doing as Gelson’s started sliding downhill I never see dogs. So either every owner with a service dog comes here or they are just letting people in with dogs without checking which is what I always see and suspect to be the case.
The checkout lines have gotten longer at off hours with management seemingly more reluctant to open additional lines. This past Friday night I grabbed some La Brea Bakery chocolate chip cookies that turned out to be stale. First time I ever had a problem with something I bought at Gelsons. It just adds to my feeling that if there are so many dogs in the store, check out lines are getting longer and I run the risk of stale food I’m not willing to pay the higher prices that I gladly paid in the past for the tradeoff of a great store when the store was better. It looks like they hired new managers recently and that might be part of the reason for the downhill slide.

Found what I need here. Thanks Gelson:)
Very neat and nice place for shop your groceries needs.
Located in West Hollywood, well fancy area.

Gross Out Alert: Friday, July 31: small pug like dog in the service deli was licking the floor!!! Super Unconscious female dog owner was just standing there letting the dog lick the floor in the middle of the service deli, like she was out on the street or something. I then watched her walk the dog down Kings Road like it’s perfectly okay for a dog (that does dog things like lick the ground, licked it’s own private parts, and who-​knows-​what else) come into a store and lick and sniff where there’s food (imagine food on the bottom shelves!). Best is next time they mop that floor you know they mopped other parts of the store. This is what you get in this Gelson’s all the time: unsanitary conditions.
It gets better! The [very next day] (italics/​bold) I saw *another* woman walk in the entrance with her dog (I walk by this Gelson’s almost daily to do things on SM Blvd).
Like I said, the place is a kennel. «Would you like fleas with that salad?» Nasty.

I love this store, they always have a new product for me to go crazy about and talk about for a week or so. I recently discovered cooking and my new found passion has me exploring new creations that may not always work out but it’s a lesson on what not to cook specially for hungry guests expecting a proper meal
The staff is always courteous and helpful

Did a quick impromptu shopping trip here when visiting West Hollywood recently. The salad bar, prepared food, and deli looked very impressive (but I didn’t partake). Overall, prices for items in the store didn’t seem all that outrageous and the variety of brands was good. The baguette we got from the bakery was fresh and light. Bought some amazing goat cheese.
Also looked like a good place to find a gift– beautiful floral arrangements, greeting cards, interesting items.
Staff was friendly. Some of the customers (female)– not so much but whatever :)

Ugh. That turkey sandwich I just got from the deli sure was stale, but at least it was pricey. For what I paid, Mr Gelson could’ve strolled over to aisle 3 and started with a reasonably fresh loaf of bread. The potato salad was partially frozen. So, it was either not fully thawed (is freezing potato salad a thing?) or the refrigerated items were at the wrong temperature.
Really, the food I had today was on par, quality wise, with something you’d pick up at a gas station or 7 – 11, but at 3 times the price.

I was never impressed with this supermarket. When I first moved to LA, they kept mailing me $ 5 off coupons, which I thought was awesome. But when I visited, I realized that the mark-​up was so great that it was actually cheaper not to get a discount and shop elsewhere, like the Pavilion’s down the street — which also has high quality food. I also found that this store not to be as comprehensive as the Pavilion’s, so I tend to avoid this place.
For a special event, we had food pre-​prepared through their Wolfgang Puck portion of their kitchen. We had bread, prime rib, artichoke bases, and prosciutto on melon. I liked the artichoke bases and prime rib, but the prosciutto was really strange. The prime rib was very very salty. We didn’t know, but it took us 1.5 hours to prepare the food for our guests.