Giant Eagle

Came to this location for a quick run in and I regret it immensely. Decided to get a Giant Eagle card since my item was on sale. The clerk at Customer Service was so rude I took my ID back and walked away. Her language was impossible to understand and when I didn’t understand her second mumbling she yelled her question at me. This happened twice. They won’t ever see me here again.

As a petite, young, white female, I’m fearful to go here alone. I choose this giant eagle (most of the time) over the big Market District one on Center avenue because it’s easier to find a place to park, and you can run in and grab what you need quickly. However, I feel like I walk around with my purse clutched tightly to my side and have to watch my back. The clientele that hang out/​shop here is not the greatest. There is a police officer that sits at the front of the building, which is good, that makes me feel a bit better. Most cashiers are friendly and nice. Some are very slow. The shift supervisor that hangs out around the cash registers is extremely unfriendly and often shows little disregard for her job, her employees, and customers. More than once she has yelled at me to «move faster» when using the self checkout, and when my self checkout lane has needed the assistance of an employee because it wasn’t working, she makes sure you know you’ve bothered her from what she was doing. I can’t wait to return to this Giant Eagle so I can get her name and post it on my Unilocal review. Hopefully someone will get her some customer service training or etiquette classes.

Never Again.
My friend and I went into this Giant Eagle for a «quick trip» to pick up some chips and such before going to a party. Took us three minutes to find some chips. We stood in line to check out for about half an hour. It was like a window into hell. The line was for «express,» there was only one «express» line and there was only one slow checker. I will never step foot in that store again. I’m relatively new to the area and am told this store is referred to as «the dirty bird.»

Ugh. Dirty. Long lines. Walked out without making purchase.

I agree with other reviews, this store is poorly laid out and honestly makes no sense. Sometimes bigger is not always better. I used to head here often while living near Shadyside to stop at the Family Dollar & hit GE in one run.
I normally only stopped here for a Redbox movie. My debit card got hacked at an outdoor Redbox at a Get Go so I’ll only go to a Redbox that is indoor like this one.
Anyways, I’d hit up the liquor store for some wine afterwards for dealing with long lines/​wait & awkward clientele outside.

I been going to this place since the 90s and this place is the MIDDLE CLASS GE. I stopped going to this place since I got a job at whole foods. My mom went here a two weeks ago for the first tine in a long time she say that the people are still there and the place looks better and the people are a lot friendly now.
So if you don’t what too shop at a Middle Class food store in East Liberty then go to The Market in Shadyside.

Been yelled at by other customers (today for instance)…place is super ghetto… avoid at all cost. Today, left a full cart bacause a woman (with a baby in a stoller) shouted at me for «cutting in line». Will never go back. At night it is a nightmare.

I prefer this store to the Market District on Centre. It’s just as overpriced and poorly laid out and maybe a bit grimy, but carries less products to sift through when you just need to grab some simple things, hopefully not produce. Parking is easy and you can hit up the unpretentious Wine and Spirits in the same stop. I think this plaza still exists to prevent impoverished people from venturing into the other newer fancier stores which are a mere half mile away and designed to appeal to people who think they are cultured and discerning.

This Giant Eagle seems more like a GetGo than an actual supermarket. As soon as you get in you want to get out as quickly as possible.
You don’t want to do any major grocery shopping here. For one, the prices are high. Secondly, this Giant Eagle does not carry everything you need. Who has time to run to another store? Just get your basic necessities here.
As for produce, it can be awful at times. Whenever I go to Giant Eagle Market District down the street, the produce is fresh and smells invigorating. However, at Shakespeare, you are bound to find produce with wrinkles, open areas, mold and fruit flies– being sold at the same high prices. I can go to Trader Joe’s and find much better produce for less.
A pet peeve of mine is the self-​checkout lines. Two of them are express lanes for items less than 12; the other lane has a belt if more than 12 items are being purchased. There should be TWO LINES but for some reason customers want to form one long super line, which holds up everything. The staff rarely sorts this out.
The customer service is average here and I don’t expect it to get any better.
I only go here if I have to grab one or two items. The best times to go are early in the morning or late at night.

I cannot in my life understand why this Giant Eagle, of all the Giant Eagles, would get a five star rating. From the moment you walk into here it’s like someone has hit you on the head very hard and you walk around in a confused state the rest of the time you’re in there.
The set up is ridiculous. I mean, who wants to walk around in the freezer section and then go through a smaller than usual end of the aisle to see, SURPRISE, the meat section hidden off in an area where they could have knocked down the wall so you didn’t have to do a little dance to get to it. Aisles seem extra long in this store, you can tell that they worked with the space they had. It’s like when you are half way through the aisle and realize it’s too late to turn around because it’s the same distance to the end as it was to the beginning of the aisle, but you kind of just want to give up and sit on the floor because you feel like you’ve been walking forever.
Honestly, I only went here because I was at Target and didn’t want to venture any further to complete my shopping.

I am emotionally attached to this place. This place has given me food and given me a place to go to early morning’s when all the clubs are closed.:)
The night starts by saying-«It’s Party Time» and eventually ends at Giant Eagle at times. Three cheers for Giant Eagle!!!
Now, i have to cheat on you, by going to Ralphs in West Coast. Sigh…
Oh, that became more of a letter to Giant Eagle (Giggles).For the note, its a huge Grocery store, and it’s close to CMU and Upitt.
–Smriti

I have to agree that this is one of the poor examples that Giant Eagle has. Granted, it has the basics you need, and is 1 of the biggest in the city itself. Finding things takes work. My big gripe is that it has one of the weirdest and most illogical layouts that I’ve seen. It actually takes time to find what you need as compared to most stores where once you are in there a few times, you easily find everything. Parts of this store are diagonal and that causes you to go in every direction possible. Here is a quick summary of the setup as it can be classified as a maze:
1.) When you enter the store through the slow wide door, you go to the left and walk past the front registers to produce. Normal enough.
2.) From produce in front of you (a quasi L-​shaped department), you take a quick left and go diagonally to the right to walk past the pharmacy. Take a hard right down aisle 1 and then you hit the bakery.
3.) From the bakery, you walk along a long meat wall. Diagonally to the left, you’ll find the service meat/​seafood counters. And because how the wall goes diagonal to the left, the sign for Aisle 9 is facing diagonally to the right so you don’t miss it because the 1 side is longer towards the back than the other. (Aisles 9 – 14 are almost twice as long as 1 – 8).
4.) From meat, you have frozen straight back on a long back wall in its own cove. A hard right (if you bypass frozen) brings you last to hot foods, the deli, and then facing in front of you, the Customer Service desk which is tucked away in a corner (not really visible when you walk in the store).
5.) Once you pass the deli and customer service, take a hard right, then to the left (almost a U-​turn) to the checkouts, and then you take a hard left to leave.
Most of the other Giant Eagle stores are much more logical in how their aisles and deparment locations are set up. You’re not going every which way to try and find things.
Also, the service isn’t that great as one of the other reviews said. Given that, I would take Market District on Centre Ave or GE on Murray Ave over this store.
However, for those who remember the Giant Eagle on Centre Ave at N. Craig St, nothing beats how BAD that store was. There is a reason that store was nicknamed «the dirty bird.» Compared to that North Oakland store that closed several years ago, Shakespeare St GE is light years ahead.

This Giant Eagle truly is giant! And believe me, that’s about all it has going for it! You would think that this means you can find what you want, and generally you can, but it also means enormous crowds, no matter when you shop here.
You know that a trip to a large, «one size fits all» chain grocery store like this is not quite the same as shopping at Macy’s or Boscov’s. You know that it’s pretty hard to give a place like this five stars. Its purpose is purely utilitarian. But good gravy, you’d think that a place like this could handle large crowds. It shouldn’t take you a half-​hour just to get one item.
That’s what happened to me yesterday. I would have been better off going to Cogo’s or 7 – 11. I might have paid a bit more, but I would have been in-​and-​out in under five minutes. I prefer the Giant Eagle in Squirrel Hill.