Waitrose

It amazes me to see a large amount of listings on Unilocal go unreviewed for such a long period of time and Waitrose here is no different, with no reviews in nearly 18 months, in my opinion one is indeed needed, especially for such a large supermarket.
I traveled out to Altrincham to visit Waitrose today, with it being the nearest store to be, despite being a good 30 minute drive (I was in the area anyway so a bonus).
This is quite a nice store, it is one of the newer Waitrose stores in the area, being opened around ²⁰⁰⁹⁄₂₀₁₀ and it has a nice few run up of shops next to it, with a salon and a dry-​cleaners being some of them.
The staff here seem very nice, polite and seem to know what they are doing, and happy in their job, which is quite common of Most Waitrose stores, mainly with them being a Co-​operative.
This store has a nice café tucked away in the back of the store, of course you can claim your free Mywaitrose drink per day from here, with a wider selection of tea and coffee, but they is a machine if you’re in a rush, or the café is closed when you visit. I have touched upon the café in detail in a review, which will be published soon.
They is a good range of newspapers here also, remembering that if you spend £5 a day, or £10 on weekends, you get a free paper with your My Waitrose card.
They have a format of Scan as you shop here, where you can simply Scan as you shop around the store, which is a nice feature, although you need your original, big Waitrose card to do it and not the Key fob. The staff seemed nice enough in helping me activate it, and he didn’t even laugh at me constantly swiping it in every direction other than the correct one!
The range here is very good, even stocking the Rankin sausages, which most stores don’t. They are a little pricey at over £3 a pack, but I find them to be some of these best gluten free sausages on the market, and sadly they are only stocked at larger Waitrose stores, they had 3 flavours which was good.
The gluten free selection was good with a few items you can’t get elsewhere or would struggle to find, in both the frozen and non-​frozen section, although I have seen considerably better at other Waitrose stores around the country, of a similar or larger size, such as Westfield and Sheffield.
The prices of most items seemed okay, although they were a little pricey in some areas, but still it is mainly a higher quality product, even selling the exclusive Heston range, which have exclusive to Waitrose products, which adds to a list of his partnerships, for example Vision Express only sell his frames’ of glasses (Yes he does eye glasses now, and not just food!)
They were not in stock of all the items I wanted, for example the ready meal Waitrose own selection was poor, even compared to smaller stores such as Leeds The Core, and Manchester Piccadily, and in a way the inside of the store wasn’t as nice as them (The Piccadily store in particular), and those «Little» Waitrose stores did beat this store for the range on a few items, but this store as it was much larger, did stock so many things the other didn’t.
The layout of the newspapers was good, and they had a great selection, although they could have published their free newspaper offer better, as I didn’t notice a sign for it anywhere, luckily I knew about it and spent well over the £5 required threshold nonetheless!
The car park was quite nice, and a good size, and it wasn’t too crowded either, considering they is a few other shops here, and it was a Friday evening when I visited, the store didn’t appear to be too crowded either, which made the shopping experience slightly better.
This store isn’t perfect, as the range on certain things, such as Ready meals and the cottage pies I was looking for, and Starbucks Frappucinio Beverages and «Ready to go» food and beverages was poorer, but this is a nice store.
While also considering an issue with the toilets, where they were very dirty (In the toilets, on the floor and the sink) and other «negatives» mentioned, I sadly feel this store only deserves 3 stars, but it is a solid 3 star rating, and hopefully I can get Waitrose up to 4 stars very soon, on a future visit, which sadly it doesn’t deserve just yet.

Excellent food and not all that expensive, go about an hour before closing for the real bargains

If waitrose was not so far from where I live and was a tad cheaper it would be one of my regular supermarkets. Great choice of products, always clean and always very attentive, nice and friendly staff. Plus they care about their local community :)

The other day, when visiting Curly Friend in Altrincham, I had a bit of a Waitrose blow-​out. I love Waitrose. I love it to bits, and the fact that there isn’t a Waitrose in the city centre baffles me, quite frankly. They’d make an absolute fortune, and could probably poach some of the M&S shoppers too.
Anyway, Waitrose is great, despite confining itself to the ‘burbs. I bummed on about Waitrose so much this weekend, that this exchange happened between me and Curly Friend:
Me: Ohhhh, I do love Waitrose. I love it so. They sell whole artichokes and scrummy stuffed vine leaves and really super jams that is even better than Bön Maman!
CF: Becca, shut UP about Waitrose.
Me: But don’t you see, Curly Friend, I am a proper person now! I buy food from Waitrose and my wine glasses make that ‘woooooo’ noise when you do that thing on the rim… and…
CF: Becca. You still habitually go to work with laddered tights, or tights covered in fluff. At least once a week you are astonished to find that you have been wearing your pants back to front or inside out. You make miaowing noises at your cat in a conversational manner, even though he obviously knows you don’t speak cat. You spend more time in your slanket than is decent. And you still don’t understand tax. No amount of buying whole artichokes and posh pizzas will change that. You are NOT a proper person yet.
Me: …and they sell lovely flowers, and their toilet roll is awesome and I got nice bubble bath…
CF: *FACEPALM*
Me: …and their baguettes are lush and the cat food is’t great but that’s OK because last week we bought enough IAMs to sink a barge and…
CF: *spontaneously combusts, possibly due to close proximity to my burning passion for Waitrose*
Add to all this that the people at the Alty branch are super nice, and that the lady on the counter gave me the Observer supplement magazines that a previous customer hadn’t wanted, for free, and it’s basically the best shop in the ‘burbs. Maybe even the world…
…and they have offers on wine and the kitchen roll is as good as Bounty and their cookies are ace and…

This is fantastic a newly opened Waitrose just a few miles away and I see they are introducing a small trailor bag on wheels which you can attach to your bike to carry home your groceries. Waitrose is a very innovative company and this is a lovely store with a ground level car park. It is on the outskirts of the town so not too badly congested with traffic. It has a café inside and as to be expected a wonderful range of food and drink as well as household items.