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Post Info TOPIC: I miss the days when the deli served more than just chicken, chicken, and oh yes, chicken...
Anonymous

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I miss the days when the deli served more than just chicken, chicken, and oh yes, chicken...
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Anyone remember the days when you could walk up to the hot foods side of the deli and not know what to expect? Food like meat loaf, roast beef, pizza, lasagna, meatball subs... nothing terrible healthy, mind you, but if you wanted to treat yourself now and again and just have a flavorful, filling lunch, it sure as heck beat most of the stuff from the frozen food aisle. Ever since a few years or so back, when Kroger decided that every deli must serve the exact same food, I seldom ever bother with buying lunch at the deli. At one of my previous stores, the Bistro Chef there had a big following of customers that would come in just to enjoy the different dishes he'd whip up every day. Then, Kroger (because Kroger corporate knows best! After all, we only work in the stores... what could we possibly know, right?) put a stop to that and his lunch crowd business absolutely plummeted... there's no telling how many loyal customers that came in just for his lunch time creations stopped coming in all together. He always seemed to have lots more time on his hands after that happened.

Yet another good thing ruined by the brilliant folks running this esteemed company.

 



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I'm sorry, but it's been my experience that chicken is the only thing Kroger deli doesn't f**k up.

The upper middle class Kroger I use to work at in late 2015, had impressive variety often.

They would even serve Rueben sandwiches and fries every Tuesday.

But what good is a Rueben if it's dry, overcooked and nasty? Same can be said about the pizza slices, and burgers.

The french fries were also bad after 11 am.

I mean, it IS a grocery store ; not a resteraunt.

The lasagna is sometimes pretty good though.

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Anonymous

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My Kroger has a deli with booths and everything. 



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Anonymous

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Lane Hardy wrote:

I'm sorry, but it's been my experience that chicken is the only thing Kroger deli doesn't f**k up.

The upper middle class Kroger I use to work at in late 2015, had impressive variety often.

They would even serve Rueben sandwiches and fries every Tuesday.

But what good is a Rueben if it's dry, overcooked and nasty? Same can be said about the pizza slices, and burgers.

The french fries were also bad after 11 am.

I mean, it IS a grocery store ; not a resteraunt.

The lasagna is sometimes pretty good though.


Dry, overcooked and nasty is precisely how I'd sum up Kroger's chicken offerings. I haven't worked at a Kroger yet where the deli manages to make KFC level chicken. 



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Anonymous

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^ Meant to say I haven't worked at a Kroger yet where the deli even manages to make KFC level chicken. KFC doesn't even have the best chicken to begin with.



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Bakerchick25

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I can only imagine that they wanted to keep it simple. And figured who doesn't like chicken(aside from vegans and vegetarians that is)? And also something really simple they could uniformly pattern across their stores, most likely was the goal versus the variety.

Although at my store they offer chicken, the sides for the chicken, pizza, a sushi place, and the sub shop. Mind you though out of that level of variety, there is still more than enough folks that come looking for a rotisserie chicken more times than not. So I guess Kroger figures they know what they are doing by keeping chicken a staple.



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Anonymous wrote:
Lane Hardy wrote:

I'm sorry, but it's been my experience that chicken is the only thing Kroger deli doesn't f**k up.

The upper middle class Kroger I use to work at in late 2015, had impressive variety often.

They would even serve Rueben sandwiches and fries every Tuesday.

But what good is a Rueben if it's dry, overcooked and nasty? Same can be said about the pizza slices, and burgers.

The french fries were also bad after 11 am.

I mean, it IS a grocery store ; not a resteraunt.

The lasagna is sometimes pretty good though.


Dry, overcooked and nasty is precisely how I'd sum up Kroger's chicken offerings. I haven't worked at a Kroger yet where the deli manages to make KFC level chicken. 


    You haven't been at my Deli then. We are always getting compliments on our chicken, but I don't let it over cook for even 1 second. As soon as that buzzer goes off I'm there. 



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Anonymous wrote:

Anyone remember the days when you could walk up to the hot foods side of the deli and not know what to expect? Food like meat loaf, roast beef, pizza, lasagna, meatball subs... nothing terrible healthy, mind you, but if you wanted to treat yourself now and again and just have a flavorful, filling lunch, it sure as heck beat most of the stuff from the frozen food aisle. Ever since a few years or so back, when Kroger decided that every deli must serve the exact same food, I seldom ever bother with buying lunch at the deli. At one of my previous stores, the Bistro Chef there had a big following of customers that would come in just to enjoy the different dishes he'd whip up every day. Then, Kroger (because Kroger corporate knows best! After all, we only work in the stores... what could we possibly know, right?) put a stop to that and his lunch crowd business absolutely plummeted... there's no telling how many loyal customers that came in just for his lunch time creations stopped coming in all together. He always seemed to have lots more time on his hands after that happened.

Yet another good thing ruined by the brilliant folks running this esteemed company.

 


  Chicken is the biggest seller. We would have more waste if we cooked a wide variety. It can also be to much to handle with the Deli being the busiest department, aside from cashiers. We sometimes don't have the time to get everything done. 



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.Which is exactly why the hot non-chicken items are never good, but the fried chicken has full cult status in my town.

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My marketplace king soopers does fries, mac n cheese, made to order subs and pizza



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kingstoopids wrote:

My marketplace king soopers does fries, mac n cheese, made to order subs and pizza


   Yeah, we make mac n cheese, wedges, tenders, cheese sticks, egg rolls, green beans/corn, mashed potatoes and gravy for our meals. We make cold sandwiches everyday. If customers want us to make them a fresh sandwich we do, but we don't make the pizzas. 



-- Edited by myopinion on Saturday 22nd of July 2017 08:47:02 AM

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Anonymous

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myopinion wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

Anyone remember the days when you could walk up to the hot foods side of the deli and not know what to expect? Food like meat loaf, roast beef, pizza, lasagna, meatball subs... nothing terrible healthy, mind you, but if you wanted to treat yourself now and again and just have a flavorful, filling lunch, it sure as heck beat most of the stuff from the frozen food aisle. Ever since a few years or so back, when Kroger decided that every deli must serve the exact same food, I seldom ever bother with buying lunch at the deli. At one of my previous stores, the Bistro Chef there had a big following of customers that would come in just to enjoy the different dishes he'd whip up every day. Then, Kroger (because Kroger corporate knows best! After all, we only work in the stores... what could we possibly know, right?) put a stop to that and his lunch crowd business absolutely plummeted... there's no telling how many loyal customers that came in just for his lunch time creations stopped coming in all together. He always seemed to have lots more time on his hands after that happened.

Yet another good thing ruined by the brilliant folks running this esteemed company.

 


  Chicken is the biggest seller. We would have more waste if we cooked a wide variety. It can also be to much to handle with the Deli being the busiest department, aside from cashiers. We sometimes don't have the time to get everything done. 


When we had our Bistro Chef, the line of sometimes 10+ people at a time weren't lining up to get chicken, that's for sure. This guy was so popular with his lunchtime specials that people would actually message him on Facebook wanting to know what was for lunch today (if he didn't get around to posting the menu for the day, which he typically did). These are people that came in specifically to eat - and maybe, if they needed something, they'd actually shop the store, but they came for the food and it wasn't about the chicken or mac and cheese or sub sandwiches. When you have people coming in for their lunch break at the Kroger deli and not an actual restaurant, you know you've got something good going. But hey, that's Kroger... if it's a good thing, Kroger will find a way to ruin it. And they did.  



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Once a month, we won't cool the chicken we normally serve almost 365 days out of the year. We will have meatloaf and mashed potatoes, pizza, polish dogs, baked fish, etc. Our store manager told us it's ok (even though it's not) people get tired of chicken all the time. Soon our customers are going to start clucking and crowing like chickens and roosters.

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They had cod fillet meals in the deli a while ago but I think that was something they didn't mean to order. I've heard good things about my stores deli though, people say its better than kfc.

I love getting a 1pc meal with Mac and cheese and mashed potatos. I never bought meals much before I came to this store.

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Even if the "Bistro" food was delicious at your locations, if it the store is SPENDING more money producing those items than it is EARNING from selling to customers, they're gonna rightfully do away with it.

The other thing about hot prepared food (fast food, basically) is that it's pricey on the customer's end too, and inconsistent.

Ever go to your favorite resteraunt and order your "usual" and one day it kinda sucks and you regret spending money on it?

That was how I felt about Kroger non-chicken offers I mentioned, so much so, that I no longer had the urge to buy them.

Difference is, they weren't my usuals, I wanted to be open-minded and try something new, and I just regretted my purchase.

But even if it's good, and has to bring in more money than it costs to make.

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Anonymous

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myopinion wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Lane Hardy wrote:

I'm sorry, but it's been my experience that chicken is the only thing Kroger deli doesn't f**k up.

The upper middle class Kroger I use to work at in late 2015, had impressive variety often.

They would even serve Rueben sandwiches and fries every Tuesday.

But what good is a Rueben if it's dry, overcooked and nasty? Same can be said about the pizza slices, and burgers.

The french fries were also bad after 11 am.

I mean, it IS a grocery store ; not a resteraunt.

The lasagna is sometimes pretty good though.


Dry, overcooked and nasty is precisely how I'd sum up Kroger's chicken offerings. I haven't worked at a Kroger yet where the deli manages to make KFC level chicken. 


    You haven't been at my Deli then. We are always getting compliments on our chicken, but I don't let it over cook for even 1 second. As soon as that buzzer goes off I'm there. 


 Same here. At our deli we get lots of compliments often on  the fried chicken and rotisserie chicken. However, since I have first-hand knowledge of the trials of working in the "CHICKEN DEPT" of the deli, I can say that there are a number of reasons why the chicken can be so crappy. It depends on WHO exactly is working the job at the time, AND exactly how long the chicken was fried (such items as popcorn chicken, chicken livers, gizzards, and unbreaded chicken chunks can be overcooked very easily if someone is working on another errand right at the time the buzzer goes off, and doesn't get there quickly enough).

Sometimes if the regular fried chicken is not carefully and evenly breaded all over (leaving those ugly 'bare spots",)  it starts looking bad quicker on the steam table.  AND....... The worst culprit is the awful HOT BAR ('steam table') which quickly dries out everything. We are "tied down" to what Kroger corporate dingbats have dictated for us, as for equipment and procedures.

 I don't know about all Kroger stores, but our "steam table" is not allowed to be used with water, it is a DRY heat, both overhead heat lights and underneath heat,  and it doesn't take long before everything is past it's prime. We are allowed 2 hours to keep the chicken on the bar, but in reality, because of not enough help, and severely pressed for time, sometimes it ends up being left out there too long, before being replaced with fresh chicken.

I would wish that ALL "chicken-loving  food critics' be allowed (FORCED) to work in our chicken area for two solid weeks at Kroger. They might get an idea of the trials and tribulations we face every day, and not be so harsh. 



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Anonymous wrote:
myopinion wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Lane Hardy wrote:

I'm sorry, but it's been my experience that chicken is the only thing Kroger deli doesn't f**k up.

The upper middle class Kroger I use to work at in late 2015, had impressive variety often.

They would even serve Rueben sandwiches and fries every Tuesday.

But what good is a Rueben if it's dry, overcooked and nasty? Same can be said about the pizza slices, and burgers.

The french fries were also bad after 11 am.

I mean, it IS a grocery store ; not a resteraunt.

The lasagna is sometimes pretty good though.


Dry, overcooked and nasty is precisely how I'd sum up Kroger's chicken offerings. I haven't worked at a Kroger yet where the deli manages to make KFC level chicken. 


    You haven't been at my Deli then. We are always getting compliments on our chicken, but I don't let it over cook for even 1 second. As soon as that buzzer goes off I'm there. 


 Same here. At our deli we get lots of compliments often on  the fried chicken and rotisserie chicken. However, since I have first-hand knowledge of the trials of working in the "CHICKEN DEPT" of the deli, I can say that there are a number of reasons why the chicken can be so crappy. It depends on WHO exactly is working the job at the time, AND exactly how long the chicken was fried (such items as popcorn chicken, chicken livers, gizzards, and unbreaded chicken chunks can be overcooked very easily if someone is working on another errand right at the time the buzzer goes off, and doesn't get there quickly enough).

Sometimes if the regular fried chicken is not carefully and evenly breaded all over (leaving those ugly 'bare spots",)  it starts looking bad quicker on the steam table.  AND....... The worst culprit is the awful HOT BAR ('steam table') which quickly dries out everything. We are "tied down" to what Kroger corporate dingbats have dictated for us, as for equipment and procedures.

 I don't know about all Kroger stores, but our "steam table" is not allowed to be used with water, it is a DRY heat, both overhead heat lights and underneath heat,  and it doesn't take long before everything is past it's prime. We are allowed 2 hours to keep the chicken on the bar, but in reality, because of not enough help, and severely pressed for time, sometimes it ends up being left out there too long, before being replaced with fresh chicken.

I would wish that ALL "chicken-loving  food critics' be allowed (FORCED) to work in our chicken area for two solid weeks at Kroger. They might get an idea of the trials and tribulations we face every day, and not be so harsh. 


   Ours is dry heat also. It sucks if the chicken is in there longer than an hour. I try to get it out of there before it dries. I always put a little bit of water in the baked, because it is the worst, if it doesn't sell fast enough. I actually got the water idea from a customer who loves our chicken. 



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If the 8 pcs aren't selling at my store, the Deli folks just put them all on Manager's Special for 4.69 which seems to resolve the problem mighty quickly, dry chicken or no.

When I'm lucky enough to spot it off the clock I grab one, even if I didn't have a taste for chicken that day.

I prefer my chicken extra crispy and I only like dark meat so being a bit overcooked doesn't deter me.


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Anonymous

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Lane Hardy wrote:

If the 8 pcs aren't selling at my store, the Deli folks just put them all on Manager's Special for 4.69 which seems to resolve the problem mighty quickly, dry chicken or no.

When I'm lucky enough to spot it off the clock I grab one, even if I didn't have a taste for chicken that day.

I prefer my chicken extra crispy and I only like dark meat so being a bit overcooked doesn't deter me.


 I'm not sure if this is done at all Kroger stores, but at  our store, according to the PPST (and/or or instructions relayed to us by Deli Coordinater, Deli dept head, or whoever) we are only supposed to mark down the "last batch" of 8-PC Fried and Baked Chickens in the evening, i.e. around 6 or 7 PM if they haven't sold quickly enough.  No one has explained exactly why that is, but I assume that Kroger management 'thinks' that if the 8-PC fried chickens were marked down after 2 hours throughout the entire day (if they had not sold within that 2 hour time frame) then the general public would gradually catch on, and increasingly wait around for the chicken to be marked down instead of buying it at full price, and so sales at full price would gradually decline. Which makes sense to some extent.

On the other hand, ALOT of still decent fried chicken is tossed in the trash every day when sales are a little slower than expected. It is really sad how much food is wasted.



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Anonymous

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Lane Hardy wrote:

Even if the "Bistro" food was delicious at your locations, if it the store is SPENDING more money producing those items than it is EARNING from selling to customers, they're gonna rightfully do away with it.

The other thing about hot prepared food (fast food, basically) is that it's pricey on the customer's end too, and inconsistent.

Ever go to your favorite resteraunt and order your "usual" and one day it kinda sucks and you regret spending money on it?

That was how I felt about Kroger non-chicken offers I mentioned, so much so, that I no longer had the urge to buy them.

Difference is, they weren't my usuals, I wanted to be open-minded and try something new, and I just regretted my purchase.

But even if it's good, and has to bring in more money than it costs to make.


It wasn't done away with because it wasn't profitable... it was done away with due to Kroger's incessant need for everything to be "uniform" throughout the company. Kroger wants everything done by the book and every location regardless of whether or not what works at one Kroger store works at another. Kroger doesn't cater to the neighborhoods that it builds its stores in. If you're a department head and you come up with a great way to get a task done that makes sense and works great, but isn't in line with how things are supposed to be done according to Kroger, then you can forget it. Rather then give store managers the freedom and flexibility to work with department heads to come up with action plans that work best based on an individual store's needs, Kroger feels the need to outline how even the simplest of tasks is to be done. Kroger supposedly encourages employee suggestions/ideas, but stuff like that never goes anywhere because the company already has its mind made up how things are to be done. The Bistro Chef at one of my previous stores was creative and knew what his customers wanted, but Kroger didn't care one bit about that. 



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Yep, my store only does 8 pc markdowns in the evening, but if there still extra chicken before 6, can't you toss it in the clear containers and serve it in the cold bar for 6.99?

Afterall, once it's cold, it's EBT applicable, so you should have no trouble seeing it move.

I was told by one of our crew that whole rotisserie chickens are to NEVER be marked down.

I assumed it's so they can add celery, cranberries and mayo and turn it into three 7 dollar containers of "artisanal chicken salad" per carcass, but one time I got there JUST when they were cutting off the hot bar and about to toss the rotisserie chickens.

The Deli guy let me have one for 3 bucks but told me not to complain if I got the runs.

I was fine, and the chicken was great.

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They don't even use the rotisseries to make chicken salad anymore either since everything comes from Fresh Kitchen.

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