Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft

This Jo-​Ann store is very unorganized and most of the employees (the very few you see on the floor) are apathetic and very rude.
Also, every time (winter, spring, summer or fall) I go in there the place is like a yukky steam bath. Don’t they regulate the temperature?
At check out I asked for a double bag because the items I purchased were poking through the
bag breaking it and the cashier told me «we are not allowed to give you another bag.» I replied that i needed another bag because the items were coming out… she said NO!
I was too «cooked» from the steam bath to declare I needed the manager (who is probably as rude as the cashier), so I am writing this Unilocal post to say buyer beware at the Greenbelt store. I think I am going to try Columbia;s next…
Remember, Jo-Ann’s in Greenbelt is where you need to prepare for a shopping battle – no ease and pleasure in shopping at this store.
PROS
Parking is ample
Large selection of fabrics
Large selection of crafting supplies and yarns
Organized check-​out line
Great selection of seasonal items
CONS
Never have enough stock of sale fabric, buttons, zippers in popular sizes
Very limited stock of great fabric which they never replace
Loooooooooooong wait for cutting fabric
Zero customer service
Poorly designed and small space for viewing patterns
Pricey for crafting supplies

Rudest servers and manager I have ever met. Will never return to this shabby, poorly run shop. Not one employee was ready to help me with anything. Poor response from the manager a woman called Ann who did even bother to apologize when told about the rude service we received.
Do yourself a favor and go to the nearest Micheals or buy supplies from Amazon.

I came in looking for a plastic piece for an under garment. Asked the manager on duty for help, she was completely dismissive and had an attitude. Tried to talk over me and didn’t even take the time to look for what I needed. In her own words, «if you don’t see it, we don’t have it». O really… you didn’t even check! Then I couldn’t find any additional associates to help me. Just overall bad experience & under staffed store… I will only go back to this store if I’m desperate! Other than that, I will just take the extra long drive somewhere else.

I would have given this location zero stars but that was not an option. The line for cutting fabric was so long and slow I ended up leaving the store without making. a purchase. The Manager on duty didn’t seem to think opening another cutting station was in order. When I asked about that as a possibility, I got a very flip answer. Horrible customer service.

This location has horrible parking, it’s located inside of the mall and the marque is not readily marked AND after all of that the selection was horrible.

This place is the worst! I waited over 30 mins to get fabric. They only had two ppl working in the entire store! Never again will they see my face!

Long lines and insufficient staff at the fabric cutting table, and worse (much worse) at checkout. I have seen the same thing at the Jo-​Ann store in Allen Park, Michigan. This place is awful — drive a bit and go to the Jo-​Ann store in Silver Spring’s Westfield Mall. The service there won’t blow your doors off, but it is much better than this Greenbelt store.

I wish I could avoid this store, but it’s the only fabric store in a very wide area. I also wish I could give this place half a star or none at all. Ridiculously slow, I will be ordering my fabrics online from now on or trekking to Virginia for better service and honestly a better choice of fabrics. Visiting this store will ruin your day guaranteed.

Hire more people and you’ll do more business. You need help at check out and restocking!

I am a long time customer of joann fabrics, and have lived all over the country, so I have experience a lot of Joann stores over the years (I am a costume designer by profession). However, a year ago I moved to Maryland and my closest store is the one in Greenbelt, so I have been going there for easy access. But I will drive 4 times farther to go to a different fabric store, from now on. I keep trying to suck it up and deal with this store but it is truly the worst customer service I have EVER experienced at any fabric or craft store. The wait at the cutting table is never shorter than 20 minutes but sometimes up to an hour. This seems unacceptable to me… some wait time, sure, but an hour? And insult to injury, there is usually only one person working… slowly…while another employee just stands there, gossiping. I have witnessed this on numerous occasions. Because I work for non profits, I am usually purchasing tax exempt… this process is ridiculous. I have completed the paperwork at least 6 times in the last year (for the same organization). Every time it is lost. Every time a manager has to come in (and he/​she is usually just as inept as the cashier), every time the policy/​procedures have changed (or so they tell me). Every time it takes me 10 – 15 minutes to check out while other people wait. In addition, any time I have asked a question I am looked at as though I have no right to ask questions and the response is always rude, the shelves are never well stocked. All in all it is a miserable excuse for a store. If anyone at the corporate level cares at all about the reputation for this company, they will get someone over there to overhaul that store and make it a decent place to shop. Right now it is an embarrassment. I won’t be back.

Terrible customer service. We called from Virginia and put ribbon on hold for my friends wedding. They said it would be on hold until 1155am. I arrived at 10 am and they said they put it back the night before! Why have 24 hr hold if they don’t really do that??

This place is horrendously slow and has awful customer service. Choose a different Joann’s of you can.

About an hour into our JoAnn Fabrics experience, it finally occurred to me that working here must be a stepping stone to working at McDonalds or the DMV. The customer service was beyond abysmal. My fiancé and I went in to get 4 yards of fabric and some long pieces of foam to make bench cushions. We spent 20 minutes waiting at the cutting counter to be called by Amanda. We finally reached the counter and requested that the foam pieces be cut down, but they would only cut them once — they refused to cut them a second time to get them down to the size we needed. Apparently store policy is that they can only make the one cut in case you decide to return them. We have absolutely no way at home to cut them, so I promised to buy all the pieces and not try to return anything. After speaking with Pat, who may or may not have been a manager, we were told we had to go pay for the pieces first, then we could come back and have them cut.
So we went and paid, then came back and had to take another number and wait 20 more minutes. Finally we were called by Caroline, the other woman working at the cutting center. When we requested the 2^nd cut be made, she looked at us and said «Are you kidding me??» We both answered with a flat «No.» We then explained what width we wanted the foam cut to, but Caroline was unable to grasp the concept, and refused to help us. So we had to wait ANOTHER 15 minutes for Amanda to be free again. Then Amanda sort of free-​form measured the width, and started butchering our $ 90 foam insert with a turkey carver. I had to yell «stop STOP! You’re cutting at an angle!» at least twice before she responded. Then another employee/​manager/​someone who apparently out-​ranked Pat came over and made Amanda stop cutting, but she said I could do it myself. So they handed me an electric turkey carver and let me cut my own foam. Because handing a dangerous electric tool to a customer is probably way less of a policy violation than just assisting with a cut… At least I did a better job than Amanda was doing.
TL;DR The customer service is every bit as bad as every other reviewer says. Next time I’m going to Walmart.

This is pretty much the only fabric store nearby, so it’s my go to location. Pre-​renovation they only had one working register, which lead to extremely long check out lines. I’ve had problems with being over charged for fabric here as well, and they didn’t really have any idea how to fix it. Renovations are about half way done at this point, and I really do like the new layout. The old store was pretty badly designed, and this one now flows like most other Jo-​Anns I’ve shopped at in the past. Overall, I still prefer the Columbia location. The staff is much nicer and so is the store.

Does anyone ever SMILE here! Hell, do they even talk to the customer? Lordie!

I just got back home from this place. It was terrible as soon as I put my hands on a shopping cart. The cart twisted and turned; it wouldn’t go where I pushed it. Apparently something technical was damaged with the wheels or something. It was very annoying. I looked around for an employee to ask where the yarn was kept, but there appeared to be only one person there. This person was at the register. So I walked around the store and eventually found the yarn I was looking for.
In the check out aisle, I saw some candy etc. I pick up a Wriggles gum. There was a long line because there was only one person still there. Eventually a lady came who apparently was the manager. She helped one of the customers and said to the cashier something about some other employee being at lunch. The manager left back into the store, leaving the one employee with the long line again. Once I finally checked out and went to my car, I put a piece of gum in my mouth. Instead of it being soft and yummy, it was crunchy and gross! I immediate checked its expiration date. It was SO expired! Almost two months. I went back to the store and saw the lady who I recognized as the manager. I explained to her what happened and she said I’d have to go to the back of the (LONG) line to make the return. I said, «Mam’, this isn’t just any return of some product I’m not happy with. You’ve just sold me expired food.» She didn’t care and directed me to the back of the line. She said she couldn’t let me get in front of the other customers. So, to the back of the line I went.
Once I got my return, when I was given my receipt, I said, «Are you going to get rid of the expired Gum and check the rest of your candy to ensure you don’t continue to sell expired food to anyone else?» The cashier response was, «We’ll get to it when we have a chance. Have a good day» and then turned away from me to the next customer.
At this very moment, I continue to be dumbstruck. I still can’t believe her words and how she said it. That’s one reason why I’m writing the review. Their practices are not safe for their customers. What I heard from her is that selling expired food to their customers isn’t a priority for Jo-​Ann Fabrics.
I did find some really nice yarn that I’m happy with. However, I will never, ever buy food from them again and I will tell everyone I know about my experience so they can avoid this place. If you come here, stick to the non-​edibles and don’t expect any basic level of customer service. Just because the sore is located in a sketchy mall, doesn’t mean their customer service should be that way too. They can and should do better.

Like Jenni K. and Jen F. mentioned, the location of this place is terrible. It took a while to find a parking space because it was so crowded with all the other businesses, and it’s inside of a really sketchtacular mall. When I went, the selection of cross stitch supplies was mediocre at best — they were all out of plain black embroidery floss, and the rest of the flosses were completely mixed up and not in the right bins (so for all I know they had a ton of black floss in the bottom of the wrong bins). The store had the general look of slight disarray throughout, but I headed right for what I needed and then left without doing much browsing.
Since I live in the city, there isn’t anything in the way of jack of all trades craft stores like Jo-​Ann that carry my cross-​stitch supplies, so I might be back here out of necessity — if you have the means though, I would highly recommend their Falls Church location over this one! Their store seemed to be neater, and they had ample stock of everything I needed.

The place is decently sized and has a good breadth of different products.
The yarn selection was so-​so. More variety would’ve been nice. There was a sale going on on a ton of stuff which is nice– who doesnt love a good deal?
The place is in a kinda sketch mall so don’t be surprised if random people start talking or hollering things at you. Just a warning.