Safeway

The meat department is fantastic! They are always going the extra mile to answer questions and cut near as you need it for recipes.

It’s a grocery store. It got the job done. They had breakfast sandwiches and a starbucks inside. Cool.

This Safeway kinda sucks. Employees don’t seem to care, lines are very long, quality of food in deli is «meh.»

Prices and location are good. Only problem is lack of employee. Seems like at peak times there are 3 people working in the entire store. I understand it’s a popular and busy area but you still need to have your location staffed. Maybe they are trying to have less employees due to new Seattle minimum wage, but people shouldn’t have to stand in line for 20 minutes to buy a gallon of milk!

The new old white lady at the deli is terrible. She’s lazy, rude, and constantly screws up my order.

The produce here is typically pretty good, and is a convenient walk away from home. We do most shopping online, but will come here for our perishables. Also, check for beer deals from time to time. Some of the best prices.

IF YOU ARE ASIAN BEWARE OF THIS SAFEWAY IN LOWER QUEEN ANNE
At around 4 o’clock this afternoon, a Saturday, I stood in line at a register and waited quietly for my turn. I am an American of Asian ancestry. A woman stood behind me and started talking in a mocking way — something about the stuff I was buying. Her words were so incoherent and inexplicably aggressive that at first I thought she must have been talking to someone on a headset. But she kept going, so I took a good look. She’s White, in her late 40s or early 50s, overweight, and is wearing clothes with visible stains. Because of her behavior — mocking a total stranger for no reason — I assumed she must have been under the influence. I chose to ignore her.
When my turn came up and my goods were about to be rang by a cashier who is White (Cameron), a cashier who is Asian (Tony), stood behind Cameron and appeared to be in the process of taking over her register per schedule. The woman behind me suddenly said in a clear and loud voice for everyone within earshot to hear: «I don’t want him to ring my goods; I don’t want a Gook.»
Gook.
That’s right, folks.
Right behind me and right to the face of the Asian cashier she was referring to.
I had to ask the cashier (loudly for the woman to hear): «Did this woman just say ‘Gook’» The White cashier was embarrassed and regretful, and went about ringing my stuff. I finally confronted the KKK Lady; it was a short, expletive-​laced exchange. She told me to «deal with» what she said.
Later, I went back to the store because the incident bothered me so much. Cameron, the White cashier, was still there, and apologized. It wasn’t her fault, of course. But I understand why she felt bad, too.
But I wonder how this White cashier would have reacted if the cashier who was about to take over her register (Tony) wasn’t Asian, but instead wore a yarmulke and KKK Lady had said «I don’t want a dirty Jew». Would she have proceed calmly with her business, as she did, or would she have said something to the customer?
I spoke to the Assistant Manager, Theresa. She expressed regret, which I appreciated, and said that she knows who that customer is. Apparently, she’s had other run-​ins, including with a White cashier, and will probably be allowed back.
This is where I have a problem with Safeway.
Safeway has the ability to keep known shoplifters and disruptive customers from their premises.
Until they have a satisfactory response to an incident that involved their OWN cashier and a verbally abusive racial supremacist who apparently enjoys abusing Asians, I am taking my business elsewhere.

This Safeway is small for a grocery store. Please be nice to the staff. They are understaffed. Every time I come here, they are being yelled at. I’ll try and say hi and they are just zoned out but respond. I feel so bad. Not sure what happened for it to get so bad. They’re people and they’re treated horribly.
The produce isn’t bad at all. The fruits and veggies are still cheaper than Whole Foods and it’s from the same source. They have a small selection of decent seafood if you’re not up for going to a more expensive place or making your way to the Pike Place Market. I wouldn’t get ethnic food here just because you can get it cheaper at Uwajimaya or any other place in the Asian District.
They have a hefty section dedicated to wines. Oh myyy: D If you don’t have a Safeway card, it helps with partner gas stations which can be super helpful to save 5 – 10 cents per gallon when you need to fill up in the city or do a road trip to either Portland of Vancouver.

Straight to the points.
Pros:
Pharmacy has a private closed waiting room and staff are friendly
Cons:
Filthy, bathroom is disgusting, pan handlers/​homeless folk outside, long lines and poor sections.
Other then a good pharmacy the grocery experience horrible. There really isn’t a healthy food section at all.

We’re getting married, YAY! So now comes the fun part, the planning… I stumbled across the most perfect Debi Lilly aqua tin planters on sale for $ 1.25 each at the Ballard Safeway, naturally I bought every single planter they had left. There were 7, we needed 18.
At this point I’m thrilled that I located the foundation for stunning centerpieces but aware that I need the tables to match and must find 11 more planters. I called a dozen different Safeway locations with varying degrees of indifference.
Finally I spoke to Elise at the Upper Queen Anne location who saved three for us and Patti at the Lower Queen Anne location who had the remaining eight planters for us. All this was made possible by the lovely customer service lady who called around on our behalf. I could not understand her name either time we spoke but she’s a gem of a gal and I am so grateful for her help.
I’m really appreciative for the awesome customer service I encountered surrounding a momentous event in our lives. Thank you ladies of Safeway, you are delightful!

This Safeway is conveniently located close to my work and it’s okay if you’re buying packaged products.
I definitely stay away from the deli. I’ve seen their sandwich counter stocked with mayo that was crusted with cracks In the mayo along the outside edge of the container… gross! I will never buy a sandwich from there. I’ve seen other condiments looking almost as nasty there over the years.
The produce is mediocre. I tried to buy garlic there a couple of times but have yet to find one that I would feed to my family.
I purchased some Chinese BBQ pork there today and when I went to eat it I was disappointed to find that almost ¹⁄₃ of what I paid for was pork fat. I included a picture so that you can see for yourself.
If you do decide to go here, don’t go during peak lunch or dinner hours as there are long lines. Seems like there has been a lot of staff turnaround recently.

We just started renting in Queen Anne. I have been over charged every single time I have gone to this store and also had items added to my list I did not buy. Like a gourmet drink from the prepared coffee bar. Ridiculous. I told the man I bought cilantro which was 50 cents, he still hit parsley and charged me 1.00. I said a jalapeño pepper and he charged me for a serrano. Horrible.

I’ve been going to this location for about 2 years and feel that it’s about as good as it can get for a standard grocery store. Grocery shopping is certainly one of my least favorite things to do and there is nothing special about Safeway in general but the cashiers and staff at this location are always very nice and helpful.
As has been reported, depending on the time of day the lines can be absolutely obnoxious. However, I feel that that’s to be expected, especially in an area such as Queen Anne.
Avoid the typical rush hours and you’ll have a completely pleasant experience.

This is our closest large grocery store. We have been here about 10 – 15 times now. Great selection, kind of a weird layout (produce is split between two locations). The biggest problem is the staff. We have never been here and not had a negative experience with the staff. They tend to be very rude at checkout, they ring things up improperly and get frustrated when I point it out. I also had a girl one time that was slamming around my items and huffing/​puffing the entire time. She even swore quite loudly for no particular reason. Unfortunate, because this Safeway is in a great location and very convenient.

Here’s the deal. This Safeway is convenient. The parking garage is great. But the quality of the food and the service overpowers any reason you should go there. Tonight, I bought «fresh» oysters. Got home. Opened them up… I have never smelled something so rancid. This is the second time in like 2 weeks that this safeway has ruined dinner. (I will say, the first time, the manager was wonderful, refunded my purchases, and replaced my items. Kudos to the GM. But… seriously, step up the quality control.) Rancid oysters. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice… I’m finding a new grocery store.

So I did a quick Google to see if Safeway was sold in the past couple of years. Apparently albertsons bought it in early 2014, and they were both sold/​merged with northwest foods in dec 2014.
I’m not sure if this explains just how awful lower QA Safeway is, or if it has always been this bad.
As other reviewers have noted, there are ALWAYS huge lines. Recently, the amiable express line checker was sooooo slow (and unconcerned about it) that I thought the express sign must’ve been a practical joke. I line surfed for a bit and found a line with only a homeless man counting change and another shopper with just a few items. Only problem was there was no cashier. The light was on, the shopper in front of me made me hopeful… But eventually he abandoned the line saying the cashier wandered off somewhere looking for something. I won’t bore anyone with the details of my 20 minute wait to buy 3 items.
A few weeks before that, I walked down hoping to order cupcakes for my son’s birthday party. I hunted around for the bakery that always seemed perched at the front of the store. It’s gone. No customer-​facing bakery. No sign. Not even a goodbye. I asked someone who was stocking shelves if it was still possible to order cupcakes. He was really nice and pointed out the sole bakery maven.
She was helping a man in front of me who apparently wanted his sandwich roasted or toasted. They went off to a part of the store, far far away. She didn’t even glance at me to give me false hope.
After about 5 minutes, I thought that maybe the bakery entity was a sprawling and amorphous territory and went to see if I could find her and beg to place an order. When I found her, I was unable to catch her attention as she made her way through back deli alleys to her small unofficial bakery station.
When I caught up with her, I said, «hi.» No response. I said hi a few more times, volume increasing… as I have a naturally soft voice. After about the 4^th «hi,» the nice stocker who tried to help me the first time, came over and tried to get her attention for me. She looked over and yelled at us both that she was busy.
I left immediately and went to QFC. They have an actual bakery. It’s staffed. It’s friendly. There’s no air of doom and purgatory. They had my cupcakes ready the next day and threw in an extra one. There were sprinkles.
I have NO idea what’s happening to Safeway, but gone are the late 90s alarmingly nice, efficient, helpful staff. It’s so bad, I wonder if they’re using it as a tax write off or to launder money.
Goodbye Safeway.

I like this Safeway. However, if you come here near the «off work/​dinner hour» the lines are huge and it gets pretty chaotic.
All the clerks are very friendly and helpful, which helps in negating the slightly inflated prices for some items.

Why such a bad score? This is my neighborhood Safeway and I shop here all the time, let’s say 90% of my list is picked up here. The rest is bought at target for house supplies and Metropolitan Market for the fine ingredients I use for occasional dinners we host. The only problem is the long lines at the register :(
Otherwise, super convenient and has everything we need! They are nice staff too!!!

I’ll be honest I stopped at this Safeway to use the wifi at Starbucks because I don’t have a data plan I can use in the States since my phone is a company phone and I don’t want to turn on the roaming data.
Well I wanted to buy some drinks so it worked out that we were already there. This store though seems like a much smaller grocery store than most because it just doesn’t have the same depth as most. It’s basically the smallest big chain grocery store I’ve even been in but being in the city it’s sort of understandable.
Either way we got what we came for and there was parking available on the street at the time I didn’t feel like going to the garage.
Don’t forget your club card at home. I forgot mine but as usual the employees will scan the one in their lane so you can save on the specials etc.

After going to this one and comparing to other Safeways I’ve been to in Ballard and Bellevue, I generally stay away from this one as much as possible. I usually do all my household goods shopping here and then skip over to Met Market for the edibles.
None of the prepared food looks fresh or appetizing, produce is poor quality, and the other month I went on a late night pizza scavenge only to find the freezers were disturbingly malfunctioning, leaving everything within at unsanitary temperatures. Yuck.
As others have mentioned, cashiers are always busy but what I didn’t see mentioned was that the people they have doing bagging have NO training. This in itself contributes 80% to the length of the lines. They are incredibly slow, have no idea how to bag anything, and frequently put items together that should be separate (eggs, meat, chemicals), or put them at the bottom instead of the top of the bag (bread, tomatoes). The customer service desk is also intermittently staffed, so if you need them to unlock the liquor cabinets for you, prepare to wait a long time before finding someone to help you or else make everyone in line behind you wait a while for your cashier to grab it for you.
A little baffling to me as this is a great location with garage parking and the problems appear to be a management issue. If they had proper staffing and kept the place a little cleaner, I would be more prone to shop here as they do have better prices than others nearby. As Met Market nearby markets itself as more of a high-​end grocer, Safeway at this location would be well-​poised to market itself as an everyday grocer with great values. However, I don’t even see it accomplishing that purpose very well. ~~2 cents
EDIT/​UPDATE: The last time I was here it appeared that they did install new freezer doors. I also seem to be seeing some other minor improvements, and will up my review a star if I continue to see improvements.