"If you want high end quality ingredients...this place is a home run."
"Everything we purchased was outstanding."
"Excellent fresh fish and meats."
"Great produce section, good hot prepared foods."
"The fresh squeezed Sicilian blood orange juice is sensational."
"The food is always fantastic."
"Everything I buy here is good."
Cons:
"Prepared food is overcooked, dry, and useless."
"I got a cupcake from the bakery... the cake itself had the flavor and texture of a sponge."
"When food fall on the floor they just pick it back up an serve it to you."
"Stay away from their baked goods."
"The first thing is the quality of the food went down. BAD."
"Most of the prepared foods are very overcooked-- they should be embarrassed!"
"Pastries are very pretty but unfortunately not very good. The pastry crust is thick and oily and the filling flavors are saturated and overly sugared."
Customer Service
Pros:
"Clean and friendly."
"Mostly everyone that works here is helpful and provide good to great service."
"The staff is wonderful, especially the lovely woman at the register."
"The staff was helpful and one of their cashiers, Kristien, went out of her way to make me feel like a valued customer."
"And the staff is very pleasant also."
"Extremely over the top employees who go out of their way to help you."
"The standout last night was a young man in the produce section who saw me struggling with my purchases and rushed a cart to me."
Cons:
"Even management not responsive, only interested in bottom line $$."
"As a former employee, they definitely protect the entitled, racial, and 'long term' customers when they behave disrespectfully toward staff."
"The cashier, Sharon, yelled at me, 'Excuse me lady, I am helping another customer!'"
"The people working at the seafood section were soooo rude and very unprofessional."
"Changed their policy on entering before closing, locked out many-years loyal customers, EXTREMELY rude about it."
"Employees have poor attitude and never the same people working there--- wonder why??"
"Some cashiers seem to hate their job and treat you like they are doing ‘you’ a favor."
Store Experience
Pros:
"Italian specialty. Easy eat-in coffee bar. Attentive staff. Hot food entrees to go... Great selection of homemade quick serve appetizers. Beautiful deserts made before your eyes!"
"A great gourmet grocery. Space is limited so the aisles can get a little tight and shopping can be a bit tricky until you get used to the layout."
"The store is very clean, organized, well-managed, and in my opinion, the best shopping experience on the UES for foodies."
"Can get a little busy, but the line moves fast."
"Long checkout line at times but it moves fast as they have several cashiers."
"The store was clean and streamlined."
"The store is also a foodies dream - fresh breads, chocolate, coffee, all kinds of preserves, honey."
Cons:
"Relabeling dates has become the new common."
"There were expired products on the shelf."
"The dessert section was a mess. Unkempt, cakes, pies all askew and messy. Disaster."
"It's frustrating having to speak English 5x to get understood."
"Most things are good quality but the owner is testing the limits of customers wallet every day."
"When pastries are not sold they just put a new date on top of the old one..."
"The decor is outdated, humble and narrow-spaced, especially their aisles between shelves."
Pricing
Pros:
"Good bang for the buck esp on those nights you don't feel like cooking."
"Incredible organic produce, at reasonable prices."
"Although extremely expensive, every so often they have sales on certain products."
"Price is alright. It used to be ridiculously expensive but after Fairway arrived they mostly aligned their prices."
"Pricing is reasonable for the quality and UES location."
"Prices are great and fair."
"Prices are as expected for the UES."
Cons:
"Way overpriced, a lot of their products such as sauces are out of date that are on the shelves."
"Over the last few years, some have gone up over 50%."
"My wallet is much lighter though after coming here."
"You do pay a pretty premium for it, with some prices bordering on the ridiculous, even for the Upper East Side."
"I ordered a birthday cake at an estimated price of $85 to discover THREE days before I needed the cake that they want me to pay $200-$250 for this cake!"
"Regular fruits and veggies are OK, but organics are overpriced and often not fresh."
"Tired of prices going up and quality going down."