Sainsbury’s

Lacking in some stock areas but still a way better choice for the
regular ‘top up’ shop in-​between visits to massive supermarkets than the local
Tesco branch. When a queue occurs it does snake around the store most
inconveniently for people who want to buy booze or frozen goods. Luckily they
usually seem to have a decent number of people serving.

It seems truly unfair that I’m reviewing this Sainsbury’s location, since my experiences here are hardly as numerous as some of those on other sites who have a better idea of the store’s quality, but so be it. It seems that most criticisms of the shop are based on the fact that it has a limited selection and that it can be quite crowded at certain times of day (i.e. lunch, especially). I think that’s fair enough, but coming from an American perspective I suppose this always struck me as more of a convenience store than a full-​service grocery, so I wouldn’t expect much else. I do, however, appreciate the fact that they’re open reasonably late, and that, compared to almost any American chain store, the sandwich selection is fantastic (note that this is much more a commentary on how awful most American stores are in this department as opposed to a genuine critical assessment of Sainsbury’s sandwich options).
Hopefully more experienced patrons will add their views.

Sainsburys Borough High St SE1
Just Horrid!

ok this isn’t the crème de la crème of Sainsbury’s. I can’t see them sending Jamie Oliver there to record one of his cheeky mockney feed your family for a fiver ads. BUT, unlike most supermarkets in London there are some brilliant checkout staff. Properly friendly and always up for a bit of cheeky melon related banter!

I totally agree with jojeba on the layout. I sometimes come here to grab a quick lunch. Why have they put the sandwich section right behind a large pillar at the front of the store? A large queue builds up around this pillar every lunchtime meaning you have to push your way past people even to get into the store, then you end up tripping over a pallet as the shelves are being restocked, before you join the queue that’s already looped round the far end of the store and is half way back to the front (the tills are at the front). At least the tills are well manned so the queue does move along quite quickly.

Shelf units exude a combination of blood and ‘fish juice’. Try something new today? No thanks!
The Sainsbury’s at New Cross Gate, a huge supermarket, suffers from many of the same problems that jojeba and johnsibly have pointed out at the Borough branch. It’s shelves, trolleys. .. almost everything, looks run down. But, there is worse, believe me.
The shelf unit that carries the fish cakes, smoked salmon and haddock etc. (not the fresh fish counter) is rusty and has what can only described as a combination of blood and ‘fish juice’ dripping off it. That suggests broken packets of fish that have gone off in less than optimal storage temparatures. It really makes me wonder about their fresh fish counter. The shelves carrying (other) meat products are just as bad with beef blood and lamb fat visible on their respective shelves. People are supposed to eat food from here?
Despite several complaints, Sainsbury’s store management — even their CEO — seem supremely unbothered. Well, maybe not quite. The Sainsbury CEO’s office suggested that I go to the New Cross Gate store and ‘shop’ with the store manager so he could see what I and several other shoppers have been complaining about. How about their store manager just looking at the store and the way that customers react to it? Why would I want to bother when they can’t seem to take on board what people are saying to them? Why are the staff so unmotivated to say or do anything? What does that say about the organisation?
Bye Sainsbury’s.

This Sainsburys is my local supermarket, and for a long time it has been in need of some improvement! The layout is terrible, and it gets so busy that the queue spills into the aisles, snaking all the way around the store, so you can’t even get to the groceries.
Obviously this is not something they can help, given the space they have to operate in, but why on earth do they pick peak hours to make staff go out and start restocking the shelves? There seems to be constant staff, with crates, blocking the already packed aisles, refilling shelves that don’t need to be refilled! My boyfriend and I often suffer what we call «Sainsburys Rage» when we shop here. Disorganised and shambolic — but unfortunately, often our only choice.