Andrews AFB Commissary

This is a slightly smaller commissary if you compare it to the one at Fort Meade. Many of you might think a commissary is a commissary. Not true as this one seems to offer a few more items you usually see in more Southern and urban markets. You can read between the lines there. It can get crowded but whenever I go I only use the self-​checkout. Pretty quick this way as long as you don’t get someone who is deciding to try it for the first time.
The parking lot has finally been fixed with pavement and the potholes have been repaired.

After traveling all over the US and overseas, I can’t say I’ve seen a commissary as bad as this one and on the «President’s Base» to say the least.
I’ve been stationed here for over a year now and have been completely driven away from the Andrews Commissary. Food is never well stocked, aisles are extremely crowded unless shopping late at night, and retired or otherwise non-​military customers seem to purposely get in your way. Shoppers here are EXTREMELY inconsiderate and will block aisles, products, etc with zero regard to anyone else. Seems par for the area around Andrews. Don’t even try to shop here close to the 1^st of the month.
I can’t say I’ve ever had a bad experience with customer service at this commissary, but I also shouldn’t need customer service other than checking out. The only thing with checking out here that drove me insane was the self checkout. Employees manning the self checkout request to see your ID even though you have to scan your ID to even start to checkout. Why the redundancy? It makes zero sense and is extremely inefficient.
Save yourself time, frustration, and sanity — go to the Bolling AFB Commissary or Fort Belvoir. There are never any lines, they are cleaner, and they are well stocked.

With five years of going to this commissary I felt it was a good time to leave a review.
Customer service: Poor, overall. However there are a few delightful employees scattered about. Give them a shout out if you can.
Food/​stocking: Poor. Their frozen, refrigerated foods, produce is questionable. I should note that I’ve fallen ill on many occasions after eating food from this establishment. Maybe they need new equipment.
Deli/​Bakery: Fair. Most employees are courteous, however. Their labeling system is prone to errors. Which may be a problem if you have any allergies.
The floor layout has changed over the years, and it has improved. However, it is still a bit crowded. Seems a little small for the amount of products they are trying to sell, and sometimes lines for self checkout tend to spill into the isles.
My partner and I have found that a lot of our food seems to have been left out and then reintroduced to the freezer or refrigerated section. That or the freezers/​refrigerators are faulty, or the air quality of the store itself may be a factor.
Things that concerned us: Milk cartons (soy, almond, you name it) can often be found bulging, usually indicative of fermentation carried out by bacteria. Veggie cream cheese containers so rotten that it was like curdled milk. The stir fry we’ve bought, contents soggy, like they had been defrosted and were refrozen. Our Amy’s Kitchen pizza, soggy and fermented smelling toppings.
We thought maybe we were buying expired items, but that wasn’t the case.
In the summer we considered it may have been the loaders/​stockers battling with the heat. But for the past month it has been so chilly, it’s troubling to imagine how long they may have been leaving these items out.
As for the deli, I think the issue with labeling may have a lot to do with not properly training the new hires. I would recommend buying something prepackaged (and not from the freezers/​refrigerators) since either their handling practices or equipment seem to have issues.
Increasingly over the last couple of years the service has gone downhill. With a few exceptions. We’ve experienced plenty of unpleasant interactions with some of them. Examples would be sitting in line waiting for a cashier to stop chatting, receiving glares, or hearing muttering and swearing under their breath. If you run into this, take your groceries off their line and find someone else. Because there do exist a lot of helpful and kind employees. Seek them out, and put in a good word for them when you can.
This may be another issue related to new hires, perhaps this establishment has a high turnover rate, but you may often find that the employees on the floor are unfamiliar with the facility and its sections/​products. Sometimes, perhaps out of nervousness, instead of telling us to ask someone else they will lie and say they don’t carry it. Five times this has happened by myself, and a few times with my partner.
Some employees have recently chosen to smoke right outside the entrance in front of the Redbox. Please, take a deep breath before going out the door if you’re headed out that way. Hopefully you don’t have asthma.
It may be worth noting that in the past when experiencing food poisoning from this facility the manager did not return any of our calls.
I just want to be clear and honest with my review. I’ve fallen ill nearly every time I’ve eaten from this establishment. I’ve lost a good amount in grocery money with the spoiled/​fermented/​freezer-​burned foods. Hopefully someone from the establishment will see this and try to work on their facility before someone ends up having a very serious reaction to their food and reports them to AAFES.
In the meantime, please use caution. I urge you not to shop here unless it is for canned or prepackaged, non-​perishable items.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found this helpful.

A perk of being a veteran is the commissary. You can’t beat the prices on necessities anywhere else. Produce I can get cheaper and fresher at LA Mart or Fresh World with a better selection, but meat (including a freezer burnt section) and household items are a great deal here, even if the selection is somewhat limited. There is a large parking lot, but as of this review, it is full of huge potholes and the lines need to be repainted.
I’m only rating it 3 stars because many of the people who work here are clueless and/​or rude except for the deli/​bakery/​seafood sections which are always friendly & helpful. No one on the floor knows where anything is (lots of «we don’t carry that» when they do.) Most of the cashiers & baggers are nice, but a few always have a bad attitude. Baggers work for tips only, so don’t forget to take care of them after they load your vehicle. The lines move pretty quickly, unlike the Exchange where the cashiers are much slower.
Shopping here is best done on a weekday before 4pm or on a Sunday morning, but even then there are inconsiderate jerks who stand around, block the aisles and stare at items for an eternity. The aisles are plenty wide, so there is no reason for this. Lots of times they have in stock items that suddenly disappear for months. I noticed when there are newspaper coupons, those items sell out fast and are not quickly restocked.
The store itself is clean and mostly organized. The ethnic food & gourmet food sections keep expanding, which is good. The store now also has it’s own Rewards card which helps save money in addition to the already low prices there.
Overall, the best prices on pretty much everything a supermarket should stock, except produce. The crowds and slow moving people are annoying, and the floor staff could do better.