Walmart

While Walmart may be the most oft cited example of pure corporate evil (underpaying employees, mistreating and leveraging pay against illegal immigrants, siphoning business from those sweet little mom and pop shops…), they literally have everything. Come Hell or high water (or a zombie apocalypse), this Walmart super center is my first pit stop (be it for one stop shopping or my venue of choice to weather the storm).
In terms of the freshness/​quality of the wares on hand (in particular the meats and produce), everything is serviceable. I don’t exactly keep an eye open for «organic» or «free range» labels when I buy my fruits, veggies, and meats… and while I’m sure that this Walmart carries these kinds of products, after seeing the gallons of soda and pounds of snack foods/​candy in the average grocery goer’s shopping cart… it’s probably safe to say that most of the patrons at Walmart don’t exactly give a sh**.
Bigger is better is the mentality here. Big selection of goods (do you want the salt-​less chips, the lightly salted chips, or the heavily salted chips), a large variety of good available (from electronics, to cleaning supplies, to food, to cloths, to guns…), and big sizes/​portions available (in case you just feel like shopping once that entire month and lock yourself away at home). All this, and they’re open ²⁴⁄₇ here! You know, just in case you like doing your grocery shopping with the (possible/​probable) meth heads loitering around the place at 3:00 in the morning.
By virtue of all these points, I gotta admit that I love this place. Put a big one underground Times Square (in NYC) please… for me (it’ll be a shorter commute).

It’s Walmart… wish it was a Super Walmart…

This Walmart NEVER has anything in stock, its ridiculous! This Walmart has gone way downhill. I only go there if I have to. It gets one star because I can’t even buy what I need when I go. Also the prices really aren’t that much better then other grocery stores running sales.

Every Walmart seems the same. Slap the same paint combination on the outside, move the departments around on the inside and you may believe you’re in your local Walmart.
I just made a b-​line to what I needed, heck, I didn’t even need to look up to see where I was going. Grabbed my stuff and made my way to the exit.
Congested, and I’m not talking about the parking lot. Especially when I made it to the checkouts. Standing there took longer than me looking for my items. I was happiest when I was walking out the door.

The only reason that I gave this Walmart any 2 stars instead of 1 is that they do have a decent produce dept, which is helpful in the off-​season winter months, though you can’t depend on it, as there are times when they simply won’t have many items in stock. I also don’t have any issues buying lunchmeat at this Walmart. In many aspects, it is a huge step up from Walmarts near big cities (which is what we are used to). Big city Walmarts are dirty, the staff is beyond rude, they have no fresh produce or deli options (& if they did, I wouldn’t buy from there). Anyway-​back to the Ephrata Walmart. The stock is not always reliable-meaning-don’t always expect them to have even the most basic of your weekly shopping list items in stock. The staff can be a bit wifty (which is a better option than downright rude). I would recommend avoiding this Walmart for anything regarding pictures, picture cards, calendars & layaway items during the Christmas season. Layaway is a great option for parents of overly curious children. However, this Walmart had only ONE person working the photo, site to store, & layaway counters-​all at the same time. This is a total nightmare. I waited in line for an hour and a half, then spent 20 mins at the counter picking up my items. While several customers voiced their extreme displeasure at the situation-​the only remark from Walmart was «we only have one register back here, & everyone else is on break». This is a management 101 issue. If the manager cannot rectify something so simple, Walmart needs to find new management-​really just unreal.

This Walmart used to be soooo much better and I’m not sure what happened. They are always out of items and the lines are way too long especially for a store that is making a ton of money… hire more cashiers would ya??? I have also heard from several people that they treat their employees and vendors crappy. I actually will drive to Palmyra because the Store is much better than Ephrata’s.

This is one of the mega, super giant ultra walmarts. Its one of the cleaner walmarts, but still contains the weirdos that like to hang around out front, and as per walmart regulations you must also have the employees who really dont want to be doing their job and will sigh at you when you approach the register, and of course have the item youre looking for labeled on one shelf and located on another.
But otherwise its not bad except on weekends. Given that it has an ultra huge, mega parking lot, there can be no parking and thats a bad sign of things to come inside.