Scouse Express

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22179255


Jim

Speedwell

Those of us who never even knew Tesco was over here, raise your hands....

Scouse Express

Me

Jerseygirl

I'm not surprised...I went into a Fresh and Easy store in LA a few month ago...it was empty.

GeoffM

It's a shame, for us anyway, as it is our closest supermarket. Huge selection, always busy but not too busy, lots of foreign stuff (including British and Indian stuff) and usually better quality too.

N1cky

I agree, I'll miss them.

Need to go stock up on Robinsons and back bacon now.

Steve_

Well they're not necessarily going to close it, says it's going to be sold to someone. But they have got a lot of bad locations, which I suspect will close.

GeoffM

Just nipped in. Manager was giving staff a pep talk on the shop floor next to the checkouts so I listened in. Just the usual reassurance really, nothing we didn't already know (and I suspect many staff would have heard more through media anyway).

Giantaxe

Agreed. From what I heard on Radio 5, there are also bids for some individual stores, presumably from other supermarket companies. I suspect that from a Brit Expat point of view, this is going to be a writeoff insofar as being a source of British stuff. Disappointing but kind of inevitable given the low traffic I've seen in several of their stores. And those self checkout machines were a disaster!

GeoffM

Why? All 4 in use this morning.

Giantaxe

"Unexpected item found in bagging area"

http://web.mit.edu/2.744/www/Project...s-bagging.html

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard that message and had to get someone to help me...

GeoffM

Not exactly limited to F&E though - can't say it's any worse than Home Depot, Lowes, or even Asda/Tesco/Sainsburys.

Giantaxe

Maybe... I've had more problems at F&E than anywhere else and have heard others remark on this as well. Plus they have no cashiers at all so you're stuck with the auto checkout and hoping that someone will be around to bail you out if your have an issue.

Michael

I don't think the unexpected item problem is a big issue if the guy who is attending the automatic checkout stands doesn't have his head in the clouds. A message pops up on his screen and he just hits a key to clear that. In my local Safeway (a small one downtown), there was a major problem at one time where there was constant mispricing in the produce section and the person attending the checkout area would have to go to the produce area to make sure that the price was correct as advertised and while he was gone, many of the checkout stands became idle due to the "unexpected item" since many people brought their own fabric bags instead of using paper bags.

The full service checkout didn't have as much of a problem because the prices flew by so quickly that people didn't catch the incorrect price.

joto

It's a shame. I'll go up to the one nearest to us today to stock up on some Brit goods. It hasn't been busy when I've been in before. The sharp cheddar is nothing like English Sharp Cheddar, more like a block of American plastic cheese, so quite disappointed with that. There is Birds custard powder though, but not the ready made version.