Actually, them apples look damn fine. Clean, bright, fully loaded. Could be a game changer for folks of North Lefferts. Located as close to the Prospect Park station as Pioneer is to the Q at Parkside.
I give Western Beef a year at best. Saw many a local wandering with starry eyes. It's hard to express just how unlikely this joint would have seemed even five years ago.
17 comments:
Western Beef? Id say Wholesome Gourmet and the Associated market on Flatbush may have more to worry about. Though I did hear that Lincoln is a fancy version of Associated....
Don't know if you've been to WB lately. But seems 1/3 the customers of just a few yrs ago. But Wholesome can get late nighters and those in a rush.
Can't wait for Western Beef to close, sell, and become a storage facility in someone's back yard...
Western Beef is awful and I hope that it sells, gets demolished and becomes a better supermarket because it is disgusting even in the basement (walked by an open sidewalk grate one day and there was a festering pool of water in there). Their tag line "We know the neighborhood" has always been insulting. What about this neighborhood makes them think they can offer sub standard products and services and people would love it? Put up with it maybe but with more options moving in it is time for WB to leave.
I'd have to agree with Cali that Wholesome is in greater danger, unless its prices sink back into the near atmosphere.
But I'd not be happy to see Western Beef go. It's large in both range and size, has generally good prices, and is about as clean as most supermarkets I've seen behind the scenes of...
I can't gauge the crowds well, since as a retiree I pick and choose the quiet times, but I'm often by there when the parking lot is crowded, and friends tell me they hate to go in the evening because of long lines...just don't know.
I have friends on the block of Sterling, so I hope the storage facility Alex wrote about is just 20' wide, behind one particular house :-)
The Beef to me was never that bad. Their meat and produce section is in a refrigerated part of the store which is huge, but it was just never convenient for me to go there in terms of location. This new place has fresh mozzarella for a price that is in line with a place I used to stop in at the Chelsea market before they doubled their price so its all good with me.
-Joah
Josh,
That's why Western Beef's failures are such a shame. Their meat department is the best LOOKING one I've ever seen in any supermarket, but the meat, on the few occasions I've bought it, is very much inferior to places like Keyfood, Associated, or C-Town. I once followed a neighbor's recommendation to have meat (lamb, for stew) custom-cut by their butcher and, while it was actually quite good, it was raining on the day I bought it and water was dripping from the roof onto the butcher's cutting table. I fiured that, since the meat would be cooked well-done it would be OK in terms of health, but it was disgusting to see. Western Beef COULD have become a wonderful supermarket, with minimal effort, but their management doesn't seem to care. Now it's probably too late for them–pity!
Only two positive things I can say about generally awful Western Beef store:
1. They have a very good selection of spices. In larger-size bottles and at excellent prices. Just about the only reason I ever go there...
2. And you gotta love the smilin' cactus logo.
They also sell large bags of charcoal in the winter and their own brand is good quality. That's ALL I've bought from WB in the past several years.
Wholesome has to be the worst-stocked store in New York. Dozens of versions of one product and nothing of so many other things. Will not miss its passing. Just worried Lincoln Market's arrival also knocks out the Caribbean fruit and grocery store further down Flatbush. And Lincoln certainly nothing like Associated. V good news even if q pricey.
In my opinion, Western Beef is absolutely disgusting in more ways than one. The quality of the merchandise is mediocre and the place stinks. I go in occasionally to pick up distilled water. On one visit I purchased a roll of paper towel and it smelled so disgusting that I threw it away even though I bought it for cleaning. Whomever set that section up obviously do not know that you should not set up an area as such near a fish market, as the paper will absorb the fish smell. Duh?
Western Beef is gross. Employees sometimes smoke in the store, spills go uncleaned, it stinks, and the checkout is abysmal. They way they run that store is an insult to their customers.
Wholesome is a fancy, rip off bodega. People's expectation that it should function as a legit grocery store is way off.
Testify!
I hear a lot of talk about prices. I think it would be worth doing a side by side comparison of 10 or so common purchases, at Wholesome, Lincoln, Associated and Western Beef. Even Pioneer.
Anybody got a couple hours to do a price check??
The anecdotes aren't particularly helpful. A check of quality would be helpful too.
Considering ALL the registers have been open the two times I've been to Lincoln Market so far, I'd say they are well ahead of the game compared to WB.
However, Western is LARGE, so they have (it seems) a wider selection and more options of bulk products, and is still closest to Ebbets, so there's that. Plus, with a huge West Indian population, it seemed like Lincoln was still a bit lacking in products in that department. Where else am I going to be able to find 20 lb bags of rice and dried beans and cases of Grace soda?
Western Beef has a massive selection, it's cheap, and it stays open when everything else is closed on Sat/Sun. It also smells and checkout is an inexcusable disaster. On balance I'd be sad to see it go, as opposed to the offensively overpriced Wholesome.
I was disappointed, was hoping and expecting something like Union market but instead it's like a cross between Associated and Wholesome with about the same amount of organic goods as Associated.
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