Sainsbury’s Local

is great to have late night opening stores — though i use this one far too much and was surprised to find the waitrose next door is actually cheaper if you want more than the two things you meant to go in for and accidentally did a full weeks shop for 3 times the amount.

There’s little reason for me to venture into Sainsburys Local. If I want fresh food and veg, Taj is nearer and if I want store-​cupboard items, Waitrose is usually tastier and around the same price. It’s also such a tiny store that they don’t sell any of the items you need like pesto, spaghetti or great olive oil.
If it’s quarter to ten and you’ve suddenly realised you haven’t a supper in however, they stock a tiny selection of good quality pizzas, quiches, tarts, currys and stir fries. They also stock bad snacks, chocolates, fizzy drinks and magazines and the automatic tills, mean if you’re in a rush or hungover — you could go in and leave without speaking to a single human being. Spooky, I know.

When I lived on Western Road last year I pretty much did my weekly shop at the very-​much local Sainsbury’s Local. It has since been subject to a facelift (not that it desperately needed it), which has shiny new shelves and my personal enemies: self-​service checkouts.
I was passing by last night and went in to buy a jar of coffee, as I knew they’d have what I wanted and it’d be a reasonable price. I’d love to tell you they did have what I wanted and it that it was indeed reasonably priced, but I unfortunately got distracted by three things: 1) an attractive girl 2) an attractive selection of magazines and 3) an attraction selection of snacks.
So, with my eye still on the attractive girl (I’m not some sort of supermarket pervert I’ll have you know!) and my hands holding a tub of Pringles and a big bar of chocolate, I made my way to the battlefield. It was me versus that blabbering machine.
— «Please swipe your Nectar card and press start to begin»
— «Don’t tell me what to do!’
— «Please swipe your first item»
— «Shut up, I was going to do that anyway.»
— «Please swipe the next item»
— «Well duh!»
— ‘When you are finished, press…’
— «WHATVER! I’m not stupid»
— «Did you swipe your Nectar Card?»
— «Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!»
So, my beef with the self-​service computer woman aside, I can say that on the whole the new-​look Sainsbury’s is a pretty good place. The prices are higher than an actual Sainsbury’s but that’s to be expect. They have a great selection of food, drinks and other distracting products and attractive people are known to wander the aisles.
A word of warning, it is a pretty nice place and you can easily forget why you went there in the first place. I went in for coffee and well, let’s just say I’ve had to start drinking tea!

well i found some nice food here. range isnt bad, just like goin to Co-​op unless its the big sainsbury which is ace. i find it can be overpriced if you arnt careful. spend a load of dosh and ouly walk away with a few bags :(
clean place, helpful staff, bargin corner rocks XD

This small version of Sainsbury’s is really just a convenience store, and sells a basic range of fresh and packaged grocery items, wine, confectionery and tobacco. I’ve bought the odd item when passing, as well as sandwiches for lunch. A plus is decent opening hours — especially early in the morning.
As BigSuze says, the queuing area is hopelessly cramped, although on my visits they’ve had enough tills open to deal with the customers quickly.
A plus in my eyes was some recent customer service: some bad labelling on the shelves implied an item was reduced when it wasn’t: this only came to light at the till, (in front of the whole queue) and the when the manager pointed this out, he apologized and offered me the discount I had expected — some stores would have implied it was my fault and not offered the discount. An extra star for that.

Relatively new addition to Western Road — and the closest Sainsbury’s for miles. Really handy for picking up a couple of items — but just doens’t have the same ‘edge’ as the Tesco Metro which isn’t so far along the road. Store layout is old fashioned and cramped. The shop is just too small for the amount they have tried to cram into it. Queueing system is awful and when it’s busy it’s hard to walk down the aisles due to the queue. Definitely more expensive than it’s larger stores.