Gristedes

People only patronize Gristedes because it’s close to the apartment and you forgot something. No one would dare do their real grocery shopping here I hope. Produce is usually half rotten and nothing is where you’d expect it to be which is typical of this chain. The employees aren’t very friendly and the lines are sometimes long, but in a pinch, it will do. I’ve tried emailing the owners but they don’t care to make improvements… just like to make excuses.

Earned a Maverick Unilocal badge here redeeming a coupon for a free jar of PB&CO Dark Chocolate Dreams.
The staff was friendly enough and the clean-​enough store made for a forgettable and inoffensive experience, so can’t knock it. Will say the store has an apparent divider on one side and more aisles deceptively behind it, but maybe I was just out of it.
Oh…and hey crazy Greek fool who never made it anywhere politically, all I ask is you be consistent with the punctuation, as the storefront and some publications have an apostrophe, and others do not.

This place has always been terrible… rotting produce, exorbitant prices, selling things that are long past their expiration date, etc. But now I can say from first hand experience that this place is truly the worst. I got severe food poisoning from some ice cream sandwiches I purchased there. Clearly they are selling food that has melted and refroze. When a store is dirty and expensive, that’s one thing, but when you cannot trust their food, which is liable to make you deathly ill, that’s another. Stay away from this place, or at least stay away from the perishables! Patronize at your own peril.

This is now my favorite grocery store in the area. The employees are always helpful, cashiers do not treaty you like a piece of dirt, they have ample generic (store-​brand) products that are priced reasonably for Manhattan, and you can get in and out quickly, even at peak lunch hour.

I HATE this place. I understand your rent is high and you need to make some money but $ 8.69 for a bottle of dial bodywash that you are advertising near the cash registers? I can go across the street to the overpriced CVS and get the same bodywash for $ 6.
The cashiers obviously hate their jobs and possibly even their lives and make sure that you know it. Very unpleasant. I really hate this place but since D’Agostino closed, it’s the only option for when you need something quick.

Sometimes Unilocalers are overly harsh. I mean Gristedes, what do you have against them? They’re fine.
They’re just a basic grocery store, and I guess Manhattan is now so upscale that nothing short of Whole Foods will do. Must must must have gourmet at every turn!
Still if you’re buying cups & plates for a party, looking for mixers and all the other goodies, this is a great place to stop. Want to get home cleaning stuff, come here. Cat litter, check! The produce isn’t bad, fresh and decent. It’s not a huge huge selection of exotic stuff, but it does the trick.

I came in here to buy some quick fixings for a sandwich. They had loose rolls and bagels which was good. They also had cheap deli meat (Buddig brand). I picked up the pastrami and a roll.
There was a short line at the cashier.
Noting remarkable but nothing bad about the experience.

Not the best grocery store in the area, but they do have good sales at times. During the summer our AC was busted at the office and we needed something cool. I suggested we get Popsicles and went to here to find some. I came back with 2 boxes which had about 60 or so Popsicles total. I just paid about $ 7 which was very good. I did make my way around to see what else they have, but the prices were ridiculous.

This Gristedes makes me want to give the Gristedes on Mercer many fewer stars, for this one actually feels like a real grocery store, stocked with everything you need in logical spaces. There’s even a whole section for «gourmet» crackers, which was just what I was looking for to bring to a house party. In the middle of the day, it’s not too crowded.
I highly recommend the German chocolate cake but would skip the red velvet.

Yeah… Jane K’s totally right. This is readily the worst grocery store in the neighborhood. I have no excuse for continuing to patronize it, however infrequently.
My latest gripe is with the untrained cashiers that didn’t know how to ring up an item that wasn’t in their system… followed by an unhelpful management that basically barked orders on how to do it with no followup and without bothering to ensure that the cashier understood (which, it turns out, based on his fumbling around, he didn’t).
Tack on an anti-​compelling product selection, along with exorbitant prices relative to the D’Agostino just up the street (check the cost of the Chimay Red and Chimay Blue, for example), and you have the perfect storm of reasons to never step foot in here again. Boo.

Yeah, this place is pretty much my last resort for when I am too lazy to go to Food Emporium. The people that work here just talk on their cell phones and pretty much do nothing. You have to dig through food to find things that expire in more than a day. I think the scariest part of this store is not the produce, but the «deli counter» that I’ve never seen a single person at or behind. Why is it there?

Ew. Indeed a depressing place. Not fresh, not cheap, not clean.

Soo dirty (and not in a good way). The only things I’ve ever bought here are packaged goods. And yet, there always seems to be a line, no matter how empty and desolate the store may be. If it’s possible, the place is made all the more depressing by the lighting, with its old sanitarium style flair. Last time I was there, a washed up actor was talking loudly about her upcoming projects, and that desperation, I think, captures the place exactly.

The gristedes near me (96^th and Broadway) is so bad that my girlfriend and I refer to it as «the methadone clinic.» That is what the people there remind me of. It is far from clean looking (although I’m sure its basically hygenic), the produce is a joke, and the entrance is down a ramp on a dark sidestreet with no other businesses notorious for garbage, rats, and stuff I don’t even want to know about. I have heard multiple cashiers cursing customers and management out loud as they bagged groceries. The clientele ranges from nervous looking local professional types to the criminally insane and unwashed. They are also terminally understaffed for good measure so the lines are long. Good times all around, at least it’s generally cheaper than gourmet garage.

Once considered a high-​priced, upscale chain, Gristede’s has been in a steady decline since it was purchased by Sloan’s. This particular location boasts dirty floors, dusty shelves, a peculiar odor — possibly from the rotting produce — and a not surprisingly indifferent staff, given they’re working under the supervision of a manager who fails to grasp the concept of customer service. In an area bereft of decent supermarkets, it’s difficult to avoid, but be sure to check expiration dates, because merchandise seems to sit here indefinitely. (When I made the aforementioned manager aware that milk was three days past its prime, he saw no reason to remove it from the display case, but offered to refund my money if I discovered it had soured!)