New Seasons Market

This is not my neighborhood go-​to grocery store for many reasons. The prices are high, the selection is scarce and surprisingly a lot of the quality is poor (especially produce — moldy grapes, anyone?). The customer service is a hit-​or-​miss, with either very friendly cashiers or people who don’t even say «hello» to you. I had previously read other people’s comments about the rude customer service and now I know exactly what they are talking about. It does make going to New Seasons kind of cringey. Making it worse — walking anywhere through the store is a chore and extremely cramped, making the entire experience of frequenting New Seasons rather unpleasant. They have nice flowers out front and interesting desserts, however I recommend going elsewhere. I miss Fred Meyers.

What a great and convenient grocery store for the neighborhood. Sometimes I wish they offered non-​organic produce just keep grocery costs down, but everything tastes really good.

This review is only about Adelea or adalia? (I think? I couldn’t read her tag in time) larger woman with dark hair and deep purple tattoos on her arms. Anyway she was extremely and outwardly rude to me when I went in earlier to purchase a drink and I have no idea why. She slammed my drink down and didn’t say a word to me, when I turned around to see her name she was staring at me. It was very strange. She seemed to be polite (well…at least she spoke) to other customers. If you are going to be disrespectful to someone because of they way they look, please don’t do so while represent your place of work. It really does effect the way your employer is seen. I then heard her talking with a other employee (I was sitting at the counter eating) and she was talking about how Safeway basically has everything they do but at half the price and how «ridiculous» it was. As I sat there she told every person she could about a banana a customer had brought up with a worm in it. She may have been rude but at least I know where not to buy fruit. And it actually makes sense because there are flies all over the store. I like this store but the attitudes of the cashiers are making me want to not come here.

Rude service from deli and the cashier. The cashier didn’t even greet me, and he is the ‘head/​lead cashier.’ Terrible way to make a paying customer feel welcome. His name was nemimiah, or similar. And the lady with the red hat behind the cold case was rude! Fix it people! 7−1−15 @ 11:35 am. Terrible!

This is one of those 3.5 star reviews but I’d rather round up than down just because… it’s New Seasons.
The employees are all very helpful and friendly. There’s a parking lot, not that I use it; living only a few blocks away I usually just walk there.
The store itself is small and the isles are so tight that it’s uncomfortable s. If someone else is coming down the isle you have to squeeze around each other. And it smells funky, like sewage, on the frozen food isle.

I love this store, it has such a great fell when you go in there. The fruit is always extremely fresh and you can ask the produce person to let you try anything to make sure it’s ripe. Great unique kitchen/​home special gift item area too that I seem to always find something in I can’t live without. Great fresh soup every day and a nice make your own salad bar to pay by the pound. They also have a great lunch area where you can get just about any type of sandwich, salad or wok meal. All I feel is very affordably priced. Their grocery items are priced a bit on the high end, but all locally and sustainably grown/​made and often organic, you just have to pay more for that quality. The seafood is always very fresh as well as their meats. They also have a lot of pre-​done meat dinner items, like skewers, marinated meats and stuffed items. The staff is very helpful and the store is just lovely. My only complaint is it’s small, wish they had more room to expand.

I live in Sellwood and this New Seasons is my market of choice in the neighborhood. It’s smaller than other New Seasons Markets, but they manage to fill it with most everything I need regardless.
The produce is reliably fresh and has lots of in-​season items, awesome because l subscribe to Eating Well and the recipes almost always make use of produce available only certain times of the year. It keeps my menu interesting and New Seasons hasn’t let me down in terms of ingredient availability.
The deli is full of goodness, especially the premade salads. They change frequently and I often make a weekday meal out of them. You can couple them with the delicious rotisserie chicken (which they will split for you if you don’t want a whole one).
The beer selection is actually pretty good too. There is a nice variety of tasty staple beers, but the beautiful thing is that they manage to pack in quite a few seasonal brews – a bonus if you’re into that kind of thing (I am).
The dry goods are impressive mostly because NS stocks a lot of local brands, which I am incredibly appreciative of. And while this sometimes translates to a steeper price tag, New Season’s stocks the generic Western Family brand to keep me on budget when needed.
There is a great little flower section out front that offers everything from single stems for a dollar fifty and bunches for five bucks, to beautifully done bouquets. They also have succulents and air plants for reasonable prices. Don’t be afraid to ask them to wrap your stems in tissue or pot a succulent – they do it with a smile and often at no charge.
The staff here is great – super friendly and incredibly adept at maintaining the village-​like feel prevalent in Sellwood. It’s not unusual for members of the staff to remember you and inquire about whatever tidbit you revealed the last time you strolled through the checkout. They’re awesome like that.
The one complaint I have about this store is that items I fall in love with routinely go out of stock. It’s frustrating when this happens but it’s a byproduct of stocking local, and often emerging, products. Sometimes it’s difficult for the suppliers to keep up with demand when they earn a spot on the shelf.

This review is for the bathrooms.
New Seasons is my favorite place to take a whizz and /​or dump, because the bathrooms are always clean and smell like some goddamn good floral shit. This location has the nicest bathrooms by far, since they are single person bathrooms. That means I can poop in style, while in the privacy of a single person bathroom. The restrooms also have very nice ambience, with flowers and nicely painted walls.
¹⁰⁄₁₀ would poop and/​or pee here again.
p. s. the store might be full of overpriced crap and hipster fucks, but the bathrooms are from god himself.

Stopped in for a wok bowl, and came away with great stocking suffers. This store does not disappoint. The wok bowl is always a good deal — with brown rice and extra chicken it’s plenty for 2 – 3 people. The toy aisle was full of great stocking suffers that are sure to please. I need to visit more often!

A great selection of high quality organic food at alarmingly high prices. It boils down to a choice of getting everything you need in one place and broke the rest of month or piecemeal it at a couple of other stores and save money.

NO way in hell this is the friendliest store in town. I feel like I am in NY with that horrific attitude the cashiers have. The meat people are OK but you gotta make up your mind quick or they stand around and talk about you. The deli people are grouchy as hell too. I thought New Seasons, being that they are so expensive, would provide a good shopping experience but rarely it is there. The fruit/​veg people are OK but the cashiers– holy cow. Don’t even make eye contact. You might lose a limb! I shop elsewhere now bc I cannot handle the attitude after my 12 hour work day of working nicely with the public.

This is the «friendliest store in town»?!? I beg to differ. I have lived down the street from this New Seasons for 10 years now and have had a variety of experiences here, a large percentage of which I would deem the opposite of friendly. Not only that, I question the overall sanitation of this store… read on for the worst example, but I warn you not to read this while eating.
The staff at this store, in particular the checkout staff, are at best, apathetic; at worst, downright rude. The SOP for the checkers seem to be a blank stare and no greeting. Or, if you’re really unlucky and dare to interrupt one of their conversations with a coworker by *gasp* PURCHASING something, then you’re really in for it. The deli and butchery workers are in a little better standing. It’s mainly the checkers that have the ‘tude problem and it looks like I’m not the first to notice this based on other reviews (although the number of positive reviews for this store shocks me — I am convinced these people MUST be leaving reviews for other New Seasons branches and are mistakenly leaving them for this particular store instead).
Now to the issue of cleanliness. A while back, we picked up a few of the made-​to-​order deli sandwiches to take back home. We had been working in the yard all morning and were famished for lunch. I sat down and eagerly took a bite out of my sandwich. For some unknown reason that I can only attribute to a combination of intuition and perhaps a higher power, I paused and lifted my bread and took a peak inside this sandwich. What I saw horrified me — a SLUG was lying there, in between my pieces of lettuce. Not a small slug (not that it matters), but a sizable, 1−2″ sucker. I gagged and promptly got in my car to return this sandwich, hoping for not only an apology, but perhaps a new, FREE sandwich. Guess what I got instead? A snarky response that «it’s organic lettuce» so yes, sometimes there’s a bug or two. Seriously??? A more recent example of the cleanliness issue was a trip to the salad bar in which I found a hair in the Parmesan cheese. WHY do I keep going back to this place!!!
So, after years of going here and just assuming that this is the way New Seasons operates, I have had sporadic opportunities to visit some of the other locations and, in general, my experiences were fine, and in some cases, extremely positive. And I slowly began to realize that the other stores were fine — it was the Sellwood store that was the problem. At this point, I am holding out hope that the new store that will be built on Woodstock Blvd. will be the opposite of the Sellwood store in every way, shape and form. I would rather get in my car and drive the few miles to the new store than walk a few blocks to this one. In fact, I wouldn’t shed a single tear if, after building the new store on Woodstock, they close this one down.

Let it be known that generally I am a devotee of New Seasons. The Insterstate store has always been my haunt and I never had a bad experience with any employee there. But the last few times I’ve been into the Sellwood location I’ve had some awful experiences. I witnessed a checker scoff loudly at a larger woman in front of me as she scanned her cupcake puchase. Whaaaaaa just happened, I thought to myself. Next time I came in it was my turn. I had to run and get something I’d forgotten and when I came back the female checker was making fun of my chocolate bar purchase with another employee! Yoinks! Apparently we are no longer able to purchase very expensive fair trade chocolate for a dinner party without judgement. The NEXT time I came in there was a woman whispering to her coworker something very rude about a customer that I’m sure she didn’t mean for me to overhear.
This store has some serious problems ‘tude-​wise. I recommend some chocolate. It puts everyone in a better mind state.

It’s solid. Nice service, prices and well-​curated product selection for the foodie and/​or vegetarian.

At this point, I am a certified New Seasons Expert. I know them all. Too well.
This one is my neighborhood joint. The deli and I are *like this*. The parking situation is still a nightmare. They have recently redone the produce area, opening it up quite a bit.
The thing that gets this location the fifth star is the staff. Not a one in the bunch who is not upholding the promise of Friendliest Store In Town. Love these people.
Good deals to be had if you are paying attention. Especially lovely floral department. They finally stock my favorite Vinho Verde. As good as it gets.

My favorite grocery store of all time.
In a nutshell:
clean, bright, and beautiful
great array of products
wonderful deli and hot food counter
super produce
awesome flower department
wonderful customer service and friendly employees
recycling bins
close to home

Since I’m going to try to review each of the NS locations that I’ve been to, rather than review them as one big amorphous entity, I’ll try to point out the hits and misses of each particular joint.
Plusses: They’ve got these awesome recycling bins at the side of the store for all the random things you’re not supposed to toss in your own home recycling bins. (Did you know you’re not supposed to recycle those plastic lids from yogurt containers or New Season’s very own to-​go tubs!!! I had no idea! Apparently, they jam up the recycling robots).
Nice compact version of the larger New Seasons.
Minusses: Nice compact version of the larger New Seasons. Sometimes, it feels a big small with its narrow aisles and smaller departments that are the size of your teenage bedroom. But, hey, all the Sellwood organic mamas and papas need a quick place to go to pick up their organic Nancy’s yogurt (so they can recycle the lids here later!)

Way better than QFC!!!

You do know who I am don’t you?
I’m the mother loving (I mean serious hard core, rated x, full penetration mother lovin’) Duke of this here joint. Why else would the guy behind the deli counter happily accommodate my whim for a not on the menu Reuben by making Thousand Island dressing on the spot and slicing fresh corned beef? Would the meat department offer to cut up 3 lbs. of chicken wings for just a regular guy? Or offer to throw that piece of flank steak through the tenderizer a few times to any commoner?
I think not!
And the cute check out girls? You (yes you, pedestrian) probably won’t see it, but they are always flashing me a flirtatious smile and have that special sparkle in their eyes that is only reserved for royalty. You know they all be itching to be my Kate Middleton.
Even the dude checkers go out of their way to compliment my selection in beer, laugh at my «observations» and be extremely nice.
Granted, they haven’t gotten around to creating a reserved parking spot for me in their oh too tiny parking lot, but I’m sure it is just an oversight.
So while I can’t recommend them specifically for the non-​blue bloods, if you are a baron, king, queen, earl, prince, princess, pharaoh, czar, emperor or any other royal bad ass with cheese, make this your grocery shopping palace of choice.

New Seasons Sellwood — Likely the smallest of the bunch, but still packs quite a punch.
This little southern outpost of Portland’s favorite grocer has served me well over the years. It used to be the closest to my house when I lived over in John’s Landing, but I couldn’t afford to shop there too often back in those days. Now it’s in a pretty out-​of-​the-​way spot, but I still stop in when I’m in the area because, well, you know… it’s a New Seasons!
This NS has a similar setup as most others, just much smaller. It’s a lot like the newer Hawthorne location, but I think smaller again. You know, they say size doesn’t matter… and this little New Seasons definitely has the same confidence as its well-​appointed brethren. No Extenze necessary, thanks Jimmy Johnson.
Decent produce section, the same great dry-​goods offerings, a small-​er-​ish deli, bulk, meat, you name it, they have it. And a lot of it is local and organic. It’s a great combination for healthy, guilt-​free shopping (if you’re prone to concern about being what you eat). Plus, these guys pretty much always have what I’m looking for when I’m in the area, be it coconut water, a healthy snack, or those critical supplies.
Love it.