Over the next few days I will start populating this new area. As a side note, the grading system will be the same, but it will be based on fewer things. I will include grades on the Scorecard page alongside full reviews, but they will be denoted as QuickHits.

Very long overdue is a redeeming review of the Park Meadows Best Buy. Last year I give this store 2 somewhat brutal, yet deserved reviews. I’ve visited the store unofficially over the past year or so and I’ve noticed a significant improvement in how well the staff is focused on customers. So, I thought an official visit where I’m thinking about a review was in order. Especially after my dismal trip to the new Southglenn store yesterday, I needed to go somewhere that I at least knew my existence would be acknowledged. I digress…

In previous visits I made to this Best Buy, I’ve basically gone unnoticed in the store. Today was much different. As soon as I entered the store, I was greeted by the security guy. Taking my count of how many employees would ignore me as they walked by, I only got to 2 before someone actually approached me and asked if I needed help. Compared to before – wow. I declined and kept pacing around the store, getting greeted here and there by about 2/3 of the available employees I saw. Most of them asked me if I could be helped to find something; generally I decline this question to test how good of a salesperson I’m dealing with. A few people offered some information about products, the rest just dismissed me with a “let me know if you need something”. If they aren’t commissioned employees, that’s probably ok.

Eventually I make my way to the video games since I’m actually going to spend money if they have what I want. No employees to speak of around this area, but I saw where my target item was out of stock. So, I browsed into the other areas of the store – in general I was greeted by someone.

I did leave today without making a purchase, but I also got a positive vibe from this store that they would be able to at least help me if I need something I couldn’t find on my own. I must say that this is a very significant improvement over how this store operated about a year ago, and I am very pleased to see that. Maybe the old store manager went over to Southglenn, because it carries the same vibe that this location *used to have.

Summary
Service grade: B+. I thought they did very good by comparison
Store cleanliness: C. There were some things that needed attention which were pretty obvious.
Store organization: A-. Their impulse racks are in good locations.
Ambient noise: C. It is still really noisy in there.
Today’s Overall Grade: B-. Compared to before, this grade is like a A+++. I look forward to doing business with this Best Buy again.

ALL HAIL THE NEW BEST BUY which marks the first anchor store to open in the Streets at Southglenn, an haute-couture vista-style shopping experience complete with luxury residences which, when finished in 2009, will have replaced Southglenn Mall. The store opening was at 6PM, and I rode past at about 5PM to find more than 100 people (closer to 500) camping outside because the first 50 in the door got a free $20 gift card. Yes, you do the math – the first 50 get something, the other 450 I guess were too committed to actually just leave (or go to park meadows).

Some notes on my visit. I was willing to give ground and be lenient if I found that there was a high percentage of employees actually helping customers. I’m no idiot – I’ve been to store openings before and they are always a little hectic. Also, this store is a fair bit smaller than its Park Meadows counterpart, so it feels stuffy by comparison and the volume of people it supports is a good deal smaller. However, it looks like this location wants to carry nearly the same inventory level, so it’s VERY cramped and there are VERY few wide-open spaces for demonstration setups.

Now, on to the details. If you’ve read any of my retail store reviews before, you know by now that I first walk around the store and count the number of employees I pass that do not speak to me at all. I don’t count employees who are talking to another customer or ones who are clearly helping another customer. My previous worst (highest) count was somewhere in the 23-25 range. Today, I decided to count out loud as I walked by employees. I got up to 48 (forty-eight) before I decided I’d had enough.

Let me clarify a point here. My tally of 48 employees that ignored their opportunity to take some of my money includes:

1. the store manager
2. every single department manager I could find
3. several gaggles of employees who were in a pow-wow near the front
4. every person in a blue shirt that I could find
5. every member of the Geek Squad that I could find
6. the Qwest people at their kiosk
7. the Verizon people who were out front
8. the vendor sales guys in the computer department

REMEMBER, I only counted people that I felt had an opportunity to either assist me or at the very least welcome me to their store and/or ask me if I need any help and/or just acknowledge that I am walking around in their AoR of the store. Nada. I probably did pass 20-30 engaged employees, though that’s likely exaggerated since I likely hit some more than once in this smallish store.

Some people will say that I need to ask for help if I need help. I would agree if I was actually in the store to do something other than evaluate how good the service is BEFORE I have to ask for help. What I learned today in this store is a two-item list:

1. My property taxes are going up because of a store I will probably never shop in again
2. The lack of desire to assist the customer starts at the very top of that employee staff

If I can’t get the store manager to at least welcome me to her store when she practically runs me over in her high heels and power pants, how can I expect the blue shirt guys to do any better? Even the security guy / greeter by the door didn’t acknowledge me as I left. Even in the worst of times at other Best Buy locations, I get that little “have a nice day” line as I exit.

I did not find it fair to place my visit to Best Buy today on the same rating scale as any of my previous shopping experiences. Therefore, I went with the Harry Potter O.W.L. grading system, whereby T is the worst possible grade (short for Troll). Even though I fired a warning shot about visiting today, I had an abysmal time.

Summary (OWL scoring throughout)
Service grade: T. Forty-eight, that is all I need to say.
Store cleanliness: E. It was littered with fliers they were handing out. Otherwise, it’s a brand new store.
Store organization: P. It’s quite cluttered in attempt to squeeze in a lot of inventory.
Ambient noise: D. One of the 48 was in car stereo booming some shit that you could hear outside.
Today’s Overall Grade: T. I cannot believe that this store was actually ready to open. maybe the building was ready, but the people inside it weren’t.

To see the QuickHit review of my very next visit to this store, click here

Why would I tell you I’m coming? because I’m going to use it as a basis of comparison for my next visit to your store in a few weeks. if the service level has dropped off, I’m going to let you know about it.

If you read my reviews about the Park Meadows store, about which I do need to write a new review, then you will know that there is much room for improvement.

This new location is close to my neighborhood. If my property tax is going up because you exist, I hope it’s worth it.

This was my first experience at the ol’ Smash Burger. They carry a motto of “the best burgers you’ve ever tasted”, so I wanted to see just how true (or untrue) this was. Entering the store, there’s a humongous menu board right in front of you – one thing the restaurant isn’t short on is menus. There’s also a mini menu standing up where the line would be, and there’s another full menu behind the registers, and there’s another menu on the counter by the ordering register. I was tempted to ask where the menu was, but I refrained. They even have full printed menus that you can take home.

So, I ordered the 1/2# smashburger, which appeared to be their bread and butter sandwich, and a side of fries. The aura I got was a lot like Fatburger – it was a similar menu but it varies a great deal after that, though both restaurants pride themselves on stating how good they are.

The presentation was interesting. The burger comes open-faced and the fries are inside a mini wire bucket – a lot like what you’d see for golf balls at a driving range, only a lot smaller. For the $1.49 add-on for the fries, I felt like I didn’t get very many, but they were good.

The burger itself was – hmm – it was amazingly good. It does live up to its name – the patty itself is pretty smashed (very thin) but it’s hugeoid compared to the bun (egg bun) that it comes on, so it likens itself to a larger version of Burger King’s original Whopper design. The beef itself was pretty damn tasty, if I do say so myself, though in spots I thought it was seasoned unevenly and it got a little salty in a few bites. But they include a “smash sauce” with ketchup on the unmodified burger, and it’s apparently a blend of mustard and mayonnaise, but it’s mild (and good).

Overall, I was impressed. I do liken the experience to Fatburger with a little bit better food, perhaps. What does win me over on SmashBurger is that they have a build-your-own option (quite like Which Wich? does) that lets you choose everything from the meat (beef/chicken) to the bun, sauce, toppings and extras. It’s the only place I know (in this genre) that offers garlic sauteed ‘shrooms as a burger topping. I do recommend checking it out. It’s on Arapahoe next to Fay Myers bike shop (between I-25 and Havana).

Summary
Service grade: A-. Solid throughout.
Store cleanliness: A. There was no discernible mess.
Ambient noise: B. It was a little noisy from the kitchen, but not overboard and not too crazy.
Food timing and accuracy: A. I got what I asked for in a reasonable amount of time.
Food temp: A+. It was freshly prepared. The fries were still burning.
Taste: A+. It was a great burger – definitely better than I thought it’d be.
Today’s Overall Grade: A. I’d probably award an A+ if it was 50-cents cheaper, but a basic combo is pushing $10 once you tack on fries and a drink, which is borderline expensive for what it actually is.

Having been a frequent customer of the other Wingin’ It location I know of (County Line Road @ Quebec), I wanted to try out this new location that is a little closer to my place. Plus, I haven’t been out for wings in awhile so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to do so.

Entering the place, I immediately wished I hadn’t gone in, but nonetheless I persisted. The order taking girl was friendly as best as I could tell – but she was just ambivalent towards me, at best (I’m probably too old). I made my order and proceeded to wait. There are 3 TVs in the place and they are not all on the same channel but they are all loud; there is also some kind of Muzak equally loud, so it’s a not-so-sweet cacophony of sound from any point in the restaurant that I could find.

I couldn’t help but notice that there appeared to be only 2 people working, and neither of them appeared to be of adult age. There was the cute little blond girl with the pierced lip that took my order, and there was a tallish blond guy with a canted Yankees hat doing what appeared to be all of the kitchen work. Neither of them appeared to be particularly interested in anything other than talking to one another – I guess that’s how it goes, though, in this kind of place where there’s no one forcing things to be done.

I saw plenty that could have been done. The table I sat at was pretty nasty – apparently from lunchtime too since there were literally no customers eating when I stopped in, and it was a little early for dinner. But nobody seemed interested in cleaning up, or fixing the ambient noise, or doing anything other than eating carrots and shooting the shit with one another from what I could tell.

So, I got my order home (it was a to-go order) and started to dig in. I was not impressed. Ok, it’s like 3 minutes from the store to my house, so they didn’t get cold – in fact the temperature was quite right for freshly-made wings. But they were small, and most of the second sections had broken bones in them – that is pretty surprising considering their small size. The sauce itself – I guess I didn’t have the taste for it. I ordered “hot”, which is true to its name but it’s not overpowering for me (I’ve done the BWW blazin’ wing challenge more than once); however, I found that the sauce made the wings nearly inedible. I’m not sure if this is scratch-made daily or what, but it was like pure red pepper paste (or Korean spice ko-chu-jyan) in a reduction of saline vinegar. I had to put more than half of it in the fridge for another try another day and make a sandwich to balance the gut out.

It hurts me to give a bad review to Wingin’ It because I’ve enjoyed visiting the other location quite a bit (it has a much more subtle ambience and is decorated with sports murals and tabletop ice hockey boards), but the truth is, on this day they truly deserve it. I feel like I am being lenient because of my history, but I’ll be damned if I visit this particular location again.

Summary
Service grade: D. It was going through the motions, at best.
Store cleanliness: C. It needed to be cleaned up; this was *before* a dinner rush.
Ambient noise: F. The different TV channels + Muzak were giving me a headache in <10 minutes.
Food timing and accuracy: A. I got what I asked for in a reasonable amount of time.
Food temp: A. It was freshly prepared, I think. The celery and carrots were cold and crisp.
Taste: D. See above. The wings themselves were good, but I couldn’t get past the sauce.
Today’s Overall Grade: C-. I really wish they would put their best foot forward. There are several other places to eat in the same plaza that could deliver their product better for the same price.

I went to CC today just to shop around. It’s been awhile since I was in there, and I’m yet to review this particular store (officially) for their service level. So I waited until just after the main wave of rush hour traffic and hit the store.

First, I have to say that when you enter the store, you are basically forced to walk past no fewer than 3 employees at the service desk and register. Usually there’s another employee at a wireless kiosk just inside that, so it’s natural to assume that someone would either welcome me to the store or at least look at me to acknowledge my existence. Nope. I could have been carrying in a Glock .40 and I would have gotten the same reaction from the staff. Not a good start.

The layout of this store is actually not bad. Imagine a huge square room that you enter from a corner. On your left is an array of TVs, on your right is computer stuff, and in the middle is everything else. So, I walked over to the console games just to mope around. There was a rather unkempt guy who was evidently reshelving randomly-placed games for PS2; he evidently couldn’t think which letter comes after A and think to say hello at the same time, so he kept to himself. I paced up and down the rows of games for about 5 minutes – a handful of employees walked past me without saying anything even though they weren’t helping any customers. There was one cute little brunette girl working there that at least looked at me from 50ft away when I started looking around, but maybe I had on my serial killer face because she just didn’t seem interested in talking to me.

So, giving up on console games, I mosey on back to the computer stuff section. I’m looking at monitors. If you’ve ever shopped for a monitor, you’ll know that a 24″ HP widestcreen monitor isn’t cheap, so I was looking at a few of them. The 2 guys at their little mini-counter were too busy talking about the holiday to take my money, so I decided not to give them any after a few minutes of riffling through the information tags rather obviously.

So, maybe I need a new car stereo. Finally – someone who must get paid on commission or something. As soon as my foot touches the carpet in this area, the guy starts showing me HD radio head units. Pleasant, but pushy. I thought his attention was good, but he didn’t have all the product knowledge he needs. When I said, “so, how does the station get more than 1 feed on the same frequency?” (which I know the answer to) I got some bullshit answer, but I was pleased to get any answer, so I didn’t argue. But I didn’t buy anything because he violated my trust by not knowing his stuff.

Gradually I made my way around the rest of the store, popping into an aisle here and there, all the while being ignored by employees in relatively close proximity. So, I gave up and just made for the exit. Clearly management at this location doesn’t place an emphasis on listening to the customer, because the employees seem generally afraid or disinterested in even approaching the customer. Or maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it.

Boy I must have been out of my ever-loving mind to think I was going to have a solid experience at Circuit City today. It astounds me that this franchise is able to compete with other technology stores in this area. With service (or lack thereof) like what I got today, it’s also amazing that anybody can walk in not knowing what to get and walk out with a purchase.

Service grade: F. Only the stereo guy saved a F–
Store cleanliness: B+. This must have been what everyone was doing.
Store organization: C. The shelves are short, otherwise you wouldn’t ever be able to find anything but the TVs.
Ambient noise: F. All I could hear was the car radio department.
Today’s Overall Grade: D. I was sorely disappointed. This store has such a good location and a chance to be much better than it was today. They really need a swift kick in the proverbial ass to get it together before I would give them any of my money. It wouldn’t surprise me if Best Buy and Ultimate Electronics put this place out of business on service alone.

I have to say that I love getting my hair cut. Usually, a good hair stylist can literally put me to sleep while cutting my hair. Sport Clips used to be able to do this, but not today (and probably not ever again).

The last time I went into a Sport Clips, it was a different location and it was littered with young, semi-hot blonde and brunette girls (I prefer brunettes, btw) that were either college dropouts or just were undecided about life in their early 20s. Today’s visit was more like walking into a Denver area McDonalds; everyone I saw was both hispanic and morbidly overweight. Sexy. Nonetheless, I got my hair cut.

They weren’t busy, but everyone working was basically just sitting in the back room doing nothing (that I could discern). While I was getting my hair cut, I didn’t get pointed at the TV like I’m supposed to, so I had to crane my neck to watch the game.

I am giving good marks for the shampoo event – the girl cutting my hair was skilled with the shampooing portion of the program. Although I don’t have much hair to wash, she still took the proper time to wash it the right way and all that. But except for that one bit, it was very, very average.

I would have graded B-, but when I got home I had to change shirts because I had hair all over my shirt and collar.

Summary:
cleanliness: B
service quality: C
ambience: D-
overall grade: C

Normally I wouldn’t go here for lunch during the school year because it’s right across the street from Arapahoe HS and it does indeed get pretty slammed with school kids during the school’s lunch periods. If you arrive here early enough (before 11:30) you can normally beat the main influx and avoid a long line.

There must have been something special going on in this store, because I’ve visited it many times and I have never seen so many people working on the buffet line and in the kitchen for as unbusy as the restaurant actually was. Someone that looked like a district manager was indeed there, but I didn’t pry.

As for the food: it’s pretty stock with Cici’s. You get what your $5.29 pays for and they are incredibly consistent with taste in their flavors at this location. If I had one complaint about this particular location, it’s that the salad bar gets a little unattended at times and the food just starts to taste old from it if it sits for awhile. But, hey, you’re paying $5.29 to stuff your cakehole to its brim.

I think visiting the buffet for my first trip, I was asked 4 times if I was finding everything ok (twice by the same person). This is great overall in terms of providing service for me, the customer, but it certainly does get annoying if I can’t grab some pizza for having to keep telling people that I am indeed finding everything I want/need just fine and that I will indeed let them know if I don’t see something I want to have. Trying to commit their names to memory is a challenge.

The busboys are on point. If I get up to go get a new plate, most of the time my old plate is gone when I get back to my table. This is ok except when my fork was on the plate; it doesn’t survive. I think that’s a small price to pay for maximum cakehole stuffage.

Because of their overall consistency with quality of service and quality of food, I’m giving Cici’s a B+, whereas I would normally rate a run of the mill chain buffet as a C if they have nothing to stand out either positively or negatively.

What Cici’s can fix to earn an A from me:
1. Fix the pizza clock. It isn’t always 6:35. It’s been broken for as long as I can remember (months).
2. This particular location needs 1 more TV somewhere over the bar. If you sit facing towards the buffet, there is no real TV you can watch.
3. mix the variety a little more. In my past few trips, I’ve seen the same 3 or 4 pizzas smattered all around the buffet. I’d like to have some of the lesser-tasted offerings without asking for them.