Mariano's

I want to love Mariano's, I really do. They have great selection, good prices on booze, and a wine bar to boot. But the quality has gone way downhill in the last year. Three times now I have bought meat from the meat counter or ready to eat food from the sushi case only to have it be rotten and gone bad within two days. It really makes me wonder how long it was sitting there.

Something is seriously amiss at this store. Sure, it's conveniently located, but there are chronic problems that the parent company (Kroger) seems reluctant to address. For example, one of the giant windows facing the street was shattered at least a month ago. I understand if it's difficult to get supplies these days, but there are shards of broken glass on the walkway. Little kids walk and sometimes sit there outside the entrance. Why have they left this unaddressed for so many weeks? Similarly, as soon as you walk in, the smoothie machine has a strangely upbeat handwritten sign stating that the machine is broken "today", but it's been up for over a month as well. And I don't even like smoothies! Lastly, I prefer using baskets over carts so that I can get in and out easily, but the baskets are often completely missing from the store. When I contacted Kroger about the broken glass, this is the generic "solution" they offered: "I have documented the information provided and have shared your comment with the Store Management team so they are aware and can work to meet the expectations of our valued customers and improve future visits to our store." This company is a sad joke.

I have been to most every Mariano's in the city. I really love this one. I love it because you can pull in and park up on the deck. And although you can park on the deck at the Ashland location, they're just not as friendly in the Ashland location. I have driven as far as the Elston location which is nice if you want to go for a ride, it's out there off of the beat and path. My neighborhood Mariano's witches near Lane technical High School and is off of Western Avenue, is truly the worst. The store is just too small. The staff is ill-trained. And typically they have a surly attitude on many days. I will say that the one male manager at that store is exceptional, and their and deli staff is superior as well it's just that service desk isn't so nice. The one downtown is okay but if you don't find parking on the first level it's really a beast to make it up that very steep ramp. The store is not so great either it's bigger yes but it offers complications. Anyway being downtown it has a different crowd. Enough said I love the one on Lawrence it is truly the best.

This is the worst Mariano's I've ever visited. The overall layout is like a department store, designed to have you wandering in circles for hours looking for what you need. The vegan selection is poor, and what vegan options they have are really hard to find (not labelled and scattered in illogical places). The shelves are grouped by brand instead of product, which means I have to go search in 10 groupings across the aisle to see my options for 1 product, instead of seeing them all together. There were no ingredient/allergen labels on their fresh foods (ready-to-eat and bakery) so it was impossible to know what I could eat. The checkout experience was frustrating: inexperienced and unhelpful cashier was working alone when he clearly should have had help, and no ability to contactless pay (e.g. Apple Pay, Google Pay, tap to pay). I sent my items down the belt in the order I hoped they would be bagged (frozen together, heavy/hard items first, etc.), but the cashier threw them down the end in a random fashion, so the bags were a hodgepodge. I helped bag because there was no dedicated bagger, but every bag he did was astonishingly bad (he literally put bananas at the bottom of a bag). For the premium prices they charge and the fact that it's in an urban, affluent area, it was extremely disappointing and I won't be visiting again.