Stop & Shop

Worst customer service. They ignore you, are very slow and rude! Very disappointed with my experience.

I can’t give this store any higher than a 2, but I also can’t bring myself to give it one star. No, it’s not horrible, but there is absolutely nothing special about it. It’s pretty new (opened around 2010, I think) and pretty nice, but not great…
PROS:
Pretty large and bright. It’s pretty modern-​looking.
The store is extremely spacious, but that is also partially because there are rarely a lot of people shopping here.
There is self-​checkout here.
CONS:
Much higher prices than ShopRite.
Despite the store’s large size, produce, bakery, and meat/​seafood offerings are surprisingly small here.
Be careful in the bakery department — not all of the baked goods are actually baked in-​store. Some are, but not all.
There is no pharmacy department.
VERDICT:
There is absolutely nothing memorable about this store. There is no reason to go out of your way to come here, but it is perfectly acceptable if you’re in the area. For major shopping, though, I’d recommend ShopRite around the corner.

While the produce isn’t the freshest I’ve seen their frozen section is THE BEST I’ve ever seen. I’m not a huge fan of premade frozen food but their variety will have you wanting 1 of everything. They have wide aisle & so much less traffic than shoprite. I’ll never go back to shoprite again. don’t know why we waited so long to make the change

This is a large, fairly new store. So what can the problem be? While the store is large and there is plenty of room to move around, they do not have a large selection. The seafood counter is the smallest I’ve ever seen in a grocery store. There are always not enough cashiers on duty. They do have self-​serve check out, but you know something always goes wrong when you use this.
I do come in here when I don’t feel like dealing with the crowds in Shop Rite, but I prefer Shop Rite for selection and better prices. One more thing. .. please check expiration dates on things when shopping here. There are a lot of expired items on the shelves.

Very nicely kept store, but the produce and meat section are not well stocked. I buy mostly organic fruits and vegetables and there have been very few options here. They did have a small locally grown section during the summer that was nice, although the selection was small.
I do really like their baby section. They are always well stocked with hard to find formula and have a great assortment of babyfoods. I still come for that and if I just need to grab something on my way home from work.

This S+S is so nice, and clean, and large, and bright… but as other posters have said… it is empty! but i kinda like that. I get stuck at ShopRite (SR) all the time looking at an empty shelf because everyone and their mother goes there. This place is not as cheap as SR, but also not as expensive as the Foodtown. i enjoy going here, but im a stickler for low prices and often end up at SR. sometimes i just stop in to get things on sale that week and marvel at the space to maneuver my cart (unlike the SR or Foodtown).
CONS: no cart parking :(, annoying bank people inside trying to sell PNC, self checkout usually needs work.

Clean and neatly organized store with self checkout, which I love.

I come here fairly often because it’s close to work. There’s a ShopRite not far away, but that place is always packed — not great if you’re just looking to pick up a couple of things. The store is bright and clean with ample parking. Plenty of checkout lanes, including several where you can scan your own items.
My most frequent stop is the bakery since I’m in charge of birthday cakes for my office, and I’m always happy with the selection they offer. Cookies, cakes, pastries, pie — they have almost anything you could want. Prices are reasonable, and they do run quite a few specials so it doesn’t put too much of a hurting on your wallet. Occasionally, they’ll even offer half-​cakes and half-​pies, which end up being what I buy so I can have a bigger selection of treats.
I can’t speak much to the rest of the store, but the bakery has a great selection and the staff have always been polite, friendly, and helpful. If I lived closer, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing my regular shopping here.

Stop and Shop, I want to love you. You are clean and bright and shiny. But paradoxically, you don’t have a lot of customers, and this makes me a little wary. You are so pretty! You have a good personality! Why aren’t we all clamoring to date you?
There are certain foods that you don’t carry, and my children want, nay, demand these foods, and I don’t want to go to two places at once. So I haul my weary bones to Shop Rite and slog through the aisles along with half the population of West Caldwell/​Caldwell/​Roseland/​Fairfield/​Essex Fells.
I love your self-​checkout. Sometimes I just don’t want to talk to people, and I enjoy scanning my own items. There’s something zen about it, almost a form of meditation while doing household chores. But there’s always a problem with the scanner, and I end up having to wait for five minutes for the one person who is assigned to all four self-​checkouts that are malfunctioning simultaneously. Fortunately, it’s usually the same person who helps, and she’s so lovely, but she seems eternally exasperated by the situation. Help her out, please. Get these machines checked out.
The bar code on my old frequent shopper card became marked and etched from use. I had to mail a request to the company headquarters to get a new one, and now that bar code doesn’t work. I don’t have it in me to mail it all back to Boston, so I continue to use the crappy card that doesn’t work and just punch in the numbers individually.
You also have good muffins. The bakery breads aren’t so great. I have to get there early before the Calandra’s bread runs out.
I want to visit you more often, but usually I end up at Shop Rite with everyone else. And that’s a shame.

Anita in the Bakery department was awesome in guiding me in my order of 24 cupcakes with buttercream frosting (chocolate, vanilla & oreo). If she didn’t tell me I wouldn’t have even known that those flavors were an option. I would absolutely get cupcakes here again! They were a delicious hit and I appreciate the time she took to design my flavors with me!

What happened to this place? A few years ago it was my favorite place to grocery shop in the Caldwell area. Now, not so much.
PROS:
–Open later than Shoprite or Jack’s.
–Cheaper prices than Jack’s.
–Many self check-​out lanes are open so you do not have to wait in a long line for a cashier to ring you up.
CONS:
–A lot of their food is not fresh. I’ve had to return a container of strawberries because there was mold on them.
–They keep the same donuts over the course of a week and advertise them as fresh. I only know this because this past Friday I saw a kid stick his finger into one of the french crullers and that finger indent mark was still there today.
–I am pretty sure I have seen the same spicy tuna roll get repacked with a different label over the course of a few days because the roll now looks like it has scabies sprinkled on top.

I would have given this five stars when it first opened. What I liked about it in the beginning was that it had a lot of items that are hard to find in this area, but are commonplace in New England. Over time, however, this store has stopped carrying a lot of the things that made it unique and a clear choice over the inferior Shop Rite in town. Plus, their newest trick is to advertise sale items, not have them as advertised, and then never get them in so you can use your rain-​check. It’s frustrating, and no one in the store seems to care.
On the plus side, while their meat is more expensive than at other stores, it is unquestionably a much higher quality. People tell me, «yeah, but the London broil is cheaper at Shop Rite.» It’s CHEAPER, alright. S&S is still my go-​to place for a good steak (Vila Meats notwithstanding).
I just wish they’d stock the things I go in for. If all I wanted was generic garbage sold under the Kraft name, I could just go anywhere.

I should mention that this isn’t my regular supermarket. So I don’t come here often. BUT this is a beautiful store! Very open, well-​stocked, and OMG does it smell amazing when you walk inside! It was a smart person who placed the bakery section near the front entrance.
Most recently, I stopped in looking for a specific candy for Valentine’s Day. When I walked in, there was a HUGE display of red balloons, flowers, and so on. But when I looked for candy, there was barely any! Just the usual M&Ms, boxed hearts, and a few stuffed animals. Oh well. The search continues.
I *do* love that they have a PNC Bank ATM inside. I know there’s an actual bank in the parking lot, but sometimes it’s just nice to be able to go in the store.
Next time, I’m going to hit up that baked goods section. Mmmmm …