Marks & Spencer

I am commenting about the galleries retail park shop but it is not listed here! The store is a food only store with café. Always when I visit weekly the stocks have run out of several items I need and its quite a journey to get to it which is wasted time and time again cos I cannot get everything I need. Its a toss up between this store and Sunderland but there the parking is zero. The other thing is we like to stop for a cup of tea before we go home and find the café is very cold. Cold in the summer cos of the air conditioning blasting upon you and freezing in the winter cos there does not appear to be any heating I can tell. Please m&s get this sorted cos I for one will not be shopping here much longer.

This is a large M&S located on 2 floors. It’s mainly taken up by clothes, and only a small part of it is the supermarket. The supermarket can often be quite busy and you will have to queue at the checkout, but the food is so nice so you can’t complain!
The staff are helpful and always apologetic when they have to ask for ID because the silly ‘you must look 25 to buy alcohol or have ID to say you’re 18′ rule, but I understand they have to do this. You have to pay for your carrier bags so take your own!

Marks and Sparks in Sunderland is a large branch, selling food and clothing. It is spread across two floors (hopefully I’m not confusing it with the Newcastle branch. it has been a while since I was last there!) It is a short walk from The Bridges shopping centre. To be honest I find a lot of Marks and Spencer’s clothing dated — they no longer offer a very good range for their younger clientelle, and many of there prices are high unless you can bag a bargain in their sale. I do think their underwear offers good value though and they always have plenty of sizes in stock. The changing rooms are always clean and there’s usually a shop assistant around should you need any help finding a suitable size/​colour of item. Personally my favourite thing about M&S is their food court! They sell the best prawn pasta salad known to man. It’s expensive but worth every penny so I always get one when I’m peckish whilst shopping in Sunderland!