While one company competing for the neighborhood’s grocery dollars is enjoying its Capitol Hill honeymoon on Broadway, a chain with a longer running connection here is experiencing a few bumps in the relationship.
In its latest move alienating customers here, QFC is suddenly putting its most sought after merchandise behind lock and key. With new security systems on the Broadway Market store’s freezers, frozen goods including ice cream and sweets now require a employee to access much like the locked-down liquor aisles at area groceries.
It has not been a popular development with customers and is only the latest in the company’s not very customer friendly approach to the neighborhood and the city after things started going really south in 2021 when Kroger shut down one of the neighborhood’s three QFCs in a tiff with the city council over COVID hazard pay. A few years back, QFC also acted to restrict access to its Capitol Hill stores with shuttered entrances along the Harvard Ave side of the buildings.
The company says another recent security change on north Broadway was a mistake blaming “new store leader” for the daytime deployment of security rollups added to cover the grocery’s glass windows. “He wasn’t aware of the protocol,” a spokesperson tells CHS adding that the “shutters were installed at a couple Seattle locations to be used during closed store hours.”
But local representatives from Ohio-based QFC parent Kroger have not yet responded to CHS about how the need to lock down $5 to $7 frozen treats came about.
https://twitter.com/bkirz/status/1514405867101495299
Get ready for more security at the Broadway Market store and its sister grocery at Broadway and Pike. Permits filed with the city show plans for new construction soon to add “fixture and case changes” and “secure liquor sales” at the north Broadway store. The setup will likely be similar to the E John Safeway where liquor is purchased in a separate section of the store. Meanwhile, the Broadway Market QFC is also getting new “access control gates” at its main Broadway entry, according to the plans.
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Kroger is a terrible company, and I still am upset about their decision to close the QFC on 15th so they wouldn’t pay fair wages to their employees…
…but I think our new judicial and policing leaders _should_ pursue theft as a crime, so we can avoid turning into the SF/Portland situation
You’re mad that they shut down a store that would be unprofitable due to hazard pay? Do you think Kroger is a charity?
It’s old hat but that store was slated for closure for years, it was never very profitable and the lot had been sold to a developer prior to the pandemic. Kroger just thought they could kill two birds and win some political points by blaming the closure on hazard pay
Nope, they’re a grind house who exploits their workers.
Kroger is great
“Not customer friendly” and “alienating customers” …exactly! I’ve shopped at this store since 1999, when it was a hole in the wall…and it was such a better store back then. It’s pure crap now and I now do most of my shopping elsewhere, and I’m only 3 blocks away! They added a bunch of security and closed the neighborhood doors years ago and I saw more theft happening after that (before the pandemic). There is such a better balance of good customer service/experience and security, but Kroger doesn’t give a f@#k about it’s customers. Kroger sucks.
QFC pre Kroger used to win awards if I’m not mistaken. Kroger’s been killing it ever since in product and attitude. As you said, they made themselves a target and have only themselves to blame. It’s been relegated to a rarely visited, too expensive convenience store status for me. I’m about 8 blocks away.
It’s been a non stop progression of things making it a worse experience over the past five years.
You have made a very accurate list that if people thought about for a moment they would recognize the overwhelming majority of issues are due to homeless drug addicts. All the way down to locking up sweets. Many drug addicts enhance or prolong a high using sugar.
Our local government has pretty much legalized narcotics, theft, and do not close nightclubs that produce repeated mass shootings. The homeless population is completely out of control. Homeless people are armed frequently now and in the past month nearly every time I leave my apartment, at any hour, I witness people smoking fentanyl.
I suspect the abuse of fentanyl is directly related to the uptick in random violent crime.
I spoke the other night to a worker in a downtown store that explained he has been assaulted several times at work and there are frequent shootings outside. I for am thankful to see these stores do something to protect their staff, customers, and profits. Which are related to the cost of goods. I personally praise these stores for taking some action. I think most people would if they consider why it is your grocery store needs to have security guards and then they need to be armed with bulletproof vests years later. Crime, violence, and hard drug use just keeps escalating here.
I mean if you prefer to have homeless people with fentanyl residue on their fingers touching food products at your grocery then by all means people keep complaining about the measures they attempt to correct issues and boycott them. They are taking steps to protect us and their business! These are steps local law enforcement and politicians should be addressing, not the grocery store!
This store wasn’t here in 1999, it was a Fred meyer. The QFC was across the street. I’m sure that’s what you meant.
Not one mention in this article about the rampant shoplifting at these stores. I hope that, if you get an opportunity to chat with a store representative, you at least ask about those statistics and add them to your update. And if you want to dive deeper, mention that shoplifters rarely if ever are prosecuted here (even with our new supposed “tough on crime” Republican City attorney).
Crime was actually higher in the ’80s and ’90s than it is now. What I think has changed is that big companies like Kroger have decided preventive measures are more cost-efficient than pressing charges against every single shoplifting suspect. I will say the Broadway QFCs are getting awfully heavy-handed about it, though. Go too far with the uniformed security, locked product, omnipresent video cameras, etc., and you risk alienating your honest customers. Personally I dread grocery shopping nowadays, though I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for the workers. The whole vibe in most big stores since the pandemic started has just been awful.
You obviously didn’t live on Capitol Hill in the 90s before the leftist sh*t tornado hit.
Thing is people (and supermarkets) don’t report a lot of crimes now since they know nothing will be done, so stats are meaningless. The “petty” property crime happening (and being tolerated) now is without precedent
“so stats are meaningless.”
“The “petty” property crime happening (and being tolerated) now is without precedent”
… the latter statement would require actual, uh, stats.
I realize everyone “feels” like things are worse, but your feelings are being massively skewed by sites like this and others and comments that are unverified. Lots of people are trying to make you angry so you’ll run around posting copaganda for them; more cops, more fascism, more right-wing nonsense.
They’ll promise to protect you, but its their policies and their own defunding of the social net that has created most of these problems in the first place.
Not theft from grocery stores it’s not. I grew up down the street from the old QFC on 15th. You’d see employees tackling a thief with a ham under his arm blocks away from the store. Obviously that can’t happen now. But it was somewhat effective. Now you just walk out knowing there’s no consequences.
I never saw people load up on groceries and then walk out without paying in the 80s and 90s, with the staff doingnothing. I see it regularly now. And whereas people used to get arrested and/or banned from the store for stealing that doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Almost makes me feel like a sucker for paying myself…
Who cares? You’re really up in arms over the bottom line of this company that has paid out tens of millions to settle claims of wage theft, fraud, workplace safety and countless other crimes over the years?
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/kroger
Yes. I’d like them prosecuted early — not because they’re graduated to ransacking my home or my friends’ homes.
The reality is that shoplifters are not detained by security, but instead they are “escorted” to the door, and they quickly make themselves scarce. If police are called (often they are not), they arrive too late to catch the perp and arrest him/her. So the result is that the City Attorney has no chance to prosecute them.
Thoughts and prayers for those poor poor corporations
Its not the corporations. We pay for it. Every item stolen has a cost and it is passed on to you and me. Likewise the security measures. Don’t cry for Krogers. Weep for the honest people who only want to buy reasonably priced groceries at their local store.
Exactly! Yes, the loss of these shoplifted items may be little to Kroger’s — but they’re not going to pay for it. We are.
I mostly shop at the Pike/Bway location, and every single time I go in there is some new defense system in place. I mean, that store gets kinda bonkers, but I’m expecting a moat and sniper towers above soon.
This will help me to say no to ice cream that I don’t actually need, though.
While shopping at this QFC a few days ago, I encountered these locked doors. I found an employee and they opened it up. No problem. Inconvenient, sure, a little. But I figured massive thefts were requiring it. I was in the store a few days later and overheard the person who likely posted this on twitter. They were photographing the locked door. But they weren’t buying any ice cream, they were just being “outraged” by this inconvenience. They were talking to a manager at the store. They were really trying to get the manager going. Finally the manager said that “we have lost $30,000 of inventory, we had to do something.” The poster just kept egging them on and questioning their decision. Weird. To me this person was more upset about what this store has to do to stay in business, than they were mad at people who steal.
This place feels like a dystopian prison teeming with rent-a-cops inside and out that fallow you around and surveillance cameras, the tiniest baskets you’re supposed to do all your shopping with not to mention the up-charged city prices and now this…
It’s crazy there’s enough newly transplanted yuppies in the neighborhood that keep this place booming in spite of all this. Seattle needs an exchange program that could send me to whatever far away suburb these rich people came from.
I love living in a free country where you can move to another place if you are not fond of your current location. In spite of this wonderful option, “Moving Soon” continues to live here. It seems like I’ve been reading your angry comments on this blog for years. You obviously hate The Hill. Why on earth do you live here? You don’t seem interested in proposing changes to make it better, just seem to need something to hate. Make it a great day!
I’m so poor I can’t even afford to move. Literally. When you make 1/5th of the median income in Nu Brooklyn you scramble so hard you can’t even afford to move. My place has somehow survived this long and is slated for teardown, right? So I can afford where I’m at but barely. But when you look at rentals and they’re like 2 to 3 times more than your current rent.. The clock is ticking on my place but I can’t afford to go anywhere else. This is how people end up in the park!
Maybe update your user name accordingly?
“I hate Capitol Hill and like to vent” has a nice ring of truth to it?
Note – Every person commenting hates Capitol Hill but for reasons like “too much graffiti” and “dirty homeless people they have to look at”. I only come here to counter balance the nimbys cheering the police to club homeless people from their warm homes full of food.
Well, it’s obvious what you must do, and that is to move to a place that is more affordable (south King County or elsewhere). If you can’t afford to live in a neighborhood like Capitol Hill, then you must move. Sorry, but that’s just reality.
P.S. Have you applied for Seattle public housing (yes, I know there’s a waiting list), or to one of the nonprofit housing providers, like Capitol Hill Housing or Bellwether?
I don’t like the change but I understand the change. I disliked watching people roll-up with suitcases emptying out the freshly stocked Ben and Jerry’s on mornings leaving the yogurt and more selective flavors. I disliked trying to find a lower weight roast to have the person next to me loading their pants with any prime cuts. I don’t like it but this is where we are now. I’d rather have a close, locked up qfc where I can do my daily shopping with inconveniences than no qfc at all.
What’s walkability in a dense neighborhood to close shopping if there is no shopping to be had at all.
The Broadway Ave QFC is my regular store. Multiple times the entire ice cream aisle has been cleared out, with staff saying it’s due to shoplifter groups. Staff was instructed not to stop the group that filled duffelbags full and left. Months of this occurring in at least weekly intervals led to the installation of the locks.
While local activists, socialists and marxist-adjacent may feel it’s no big deal for a “giant corporation” to lose retail to shoplifting, ongoing incidents of theft of meats, ice cream, chips, cola and beer at this location resulted in steps being taken such as heightened security guard presence as well as these refrigerator locks.
The cost of doing business on Broadway under present-day conditions is things like this, unfortunately.
What does “access control gates” mean? Are they going to have security stand there and decide who gets to come in? A few years ago, I started joking about how the vibe in there feels like a high security prison. I wonder why other stores don’t feel the need to lock up their ice cream? I’m glad there are several other options for groceries on the hill.
and whoever decided on the layout didn’t apparently give a thought to how this would further screw up the already odd traffic pattern, especially for the elderly and disabled.
The ones at the Pike/Broadway QFC are little cattle pens you go through with a gate at the end. One on the way in (well, two, really), one on the way out.
I don’t quite understand why – I assume the exit one can be locked by security, so shoplifters have to climb over to get out? And I guess they can lock the entrance ones if they spot a known shoplifter.
Because maybe the other stores aren’t inundated with drug addict vagrants. I have no idea how you weirdos find a way to make this the store’s fault. I’m sure they love having enormous shrink and spending even more money to lock down ice cream. You people are legitimately insane,
As a former CH resident that lived two blocks away from here and went to this store 3-5 times a week, this is sad to see. It blows my mind people attack Kroger. Implement Hazard pay? Get barely profitable stores shut down. Defund the police? Get rampant shoplifting and your ice cream locked down. I by no means think Kroger is perfect, but will never understand why people think they should be ok with shoplifters or think they’re a charity that should keep unprofitable stores open.
So does anyone have an issue with the Amazon Go stores? You need proof of payment to even enter. How about the folks checking your receipt on the way out of Costco? Why should QFC not curb theft? I am the third generation of grocery store worker. My father and grandfather were store managers (not for Kroger). It is just dam sad that they have to go to such lengths to reduce the theft. Theft was always a problem, but not at this scale. This is basically rolling looting. Moved off the Hill in 2018. I missed it at first. But it has changed so.
While I understand this might be frustrating, the shudders were rolled down due to an incident of someone ganging their head so hard that it shattered the glass. Additionally, some of the ice cream is locked up as it is one of the most stolen items in the store. $25k worth of ice cream over a fiscal year is a lot!
Companies don’t want to spend money on this. Clearly. They do it because they have to. Because our city refuses to enforced basic rules of decency and order. QFC is not a food bank for the poor. If we want it to be that, we need to fund it. Which we do – it is called EBT. People need to wake up to what is happening here. We aren’t being enlightened or generous. We are being taken advantage of. Stop pretending you are virtuous and start realizing you are a sucker.
Maybe instead of complaining about more security we should complain about the rampant theft and lack of arrest and prosecution of criminals that makes the security necessary?
Or maybe the casino economy that puts Americans out of work and sends jobs out of the country to maximize profits or a bizarre system where only those fully employed get healthcare or where millions end up in prisons that just throw you back on the streets with a record so you’ll never be employed again..
I know it’s too much to hold in your brain all at once but the decisions our society has allowed our overlords make for decades have put us all in this position and the pandemic threw us all over the edge. This is all going to just happen over and over again because an insulated few simply don’t care because they alone are fine and this all works for them.
Locking up the ice cream will only work if they’re willing to station an employee in the immediate area, ready to open the doors the minute someone asks. It’s too high-volume of a product for a call-box, as I think they will soon discover. No one is going to stand around waiting for 15 minutes listening to the PA system repeat “customer service needed in frozen foods” over and over.
If you see someone taking a pint of Chunky Monkey to feed their family – no you didn’t.
Now, as in two months ago? The practice of locking down the Haagen Daez and frozen fish has been a norm for sometime.
Maybe a coincidence, but the riff raff element around the Harvard Market store seems extremely reduced ever since QFC took measure to stop the shoplifting. As a regular customer of that store for 20+ years, and living 150 yards away, I applaud the changes. Happy the employees have less of this nuisance to deal with, and it’s nice not to have to navigate a bunch of whacked out people and their Fentanyl fog, literally.
You clearly don’t know much about the grocery business on Broadway. Before they locked up the ice cream cases addicts would roll down the ice cream aisle with luggage, rolling backpacks and duffel bags loading up on ice cream. That’s why it’s locked. I’m no fan of big business but it’s time to stop burying our head in the sand and place the blame for this where it belongs. You need to investigate better.
P.S. shoplifters aren’t customers. It’s about time grocery stores starting alienating them.
If the city would prosecute shoplifting, we wouldn’t have this.
Don’t tell me it’s starving people stealing to eat. There’s free food all over town.
Soon there will be no grocery markets remaining in the downtown area because of the homeless.
I can certainly understand the the security issues at the Broadway QFC. I generally see shoplifting on a daily basis. When I see theft at the store guess who will pay the costs. I’ve always been happy with the stores associates.
Sure, it’s terrible, but so is the shoplifting I see at both of the QFCs on Broadway. I stopped shopping at them long ago.
These are shoplifting “crews” that steal these items for resale, not hungry homeless folks. I’ve never seen anything like this in Seattle, and I was in the mix in the 80’s. Amazon now has the ability to sell their Go technology to other grocery stores. With more criminals than police these days, I feel like every grocery store will soon require a credit card on file to get in the front door. Welcome to Minority Report Seattle.
I was terminated cause a customer touched me.
But why would a “crew” focus on ice cream? Think about it. Ice cream melts a half-hour (at most) after it leaves the freezer, and then it’s no good (if you refreeze it, the flavor is off and it’s full of unpleasant ice crystals). That’s an awfully short window of time in which to fence something. Maybe the “crew” theory is true for other items like, say, canned fish, that’s durable and small, but I very strongly suspect the ice cream theft is being done one pint at a time, slipped under someone’s jacket, for personal consumption. Doing it in bulk makes no sense.
Pretty much watched two people load up a rolling suitcase full of ice cream, 20+ pints, while I was across buying the $1 sale Kroger frozen peas. ..it wasn’t the canned tuna they were after.
i lived here in the 90s and can’t recall seeing that at the “old” QFC or Safeway. Ya know.. when crime was way way worse.
If QFC lets someone bring in a “rolling suitcase” and load it up in plain sight, they fully deserve what they get.That’s just idiotic. (And very, very hard to believe, I’m sorry.)
You’re more than welcome to visit some weekday morning, 9-10’ish, when they are stocking the frozen section. The gentleman working there has been with QFC for years. They’d be happy to confirm every post where someone has said crews steal ice cream and meat. He had a heck of a time keeping Ben and Jerry flavors in stock. But please, pretend it doesn’t happen, I’m sure it makes you feel more comfortable than facing what is happening all around you.
In the Harvard Market QFC there’s a sign saying that rolling suitcases are no longer allowed in the store.
Ice cream? What street value does that have?
“Psst.. Hey dude, want some Ben & Jerry’s?”
Typical Capitol Hill yuppies complaining about necessary security for a neighborhood overrun with junkies. Sure would be nice to shop at a grocery store without them instead of increased security but that’s not going to happen so stop whining and deal with it.
Why do you even read this blog? Nothing better to do with your suburban life?
Wait, you think the “yuppies” lol are complaining about the store security?
Everyone I go to the Harvard Market QFC I witness shoplifters being caught. The last couple of times it was nicely dressed white people who had no outward appearance as being the false narrative “victims of poverty” that activists claim is the root of all the shoplifting. But Kroger policy is stop the the get the goods back and let them go. To me this is like a training program for shoplifters. They might get caught but they don’t have to fear any consequences other than not being successful in stealing but the practice will surely help them hone their skills as they hit the next store.
Amazing that people think this is all a recent development because of “leftists,” “marxists,” defunding the police, and yuppies. I don’t know what hill or Broadway you all were living on back in the ’80s and ’90s but it wasn’t some kind of utopia, shit was gnarly then too. There were just about 90% less people around. I don’t like them locking up the ice cream either but I’m not about to contort myself to blame it on my chosen political bogeyman.
OMG all these comments about the store being like a dystopian prison are hilarious. I was just at broadway market a week ago – looked just like a nice, big grocery store! hahaha.
When Al Sharpton goes on TV complaining that crime is too high and stores in hit area are locking up the toothpaste, you know we’ve lost our way on public safety.
If we can’t put criminals in jail, then all of us will have to live in jail, apparently.
Pretty sure Kroger / QFC don’t want to do this but have no choice. We either accept this, or we prosecute crime, or we’ll lose all our grocery stores.
I’m really not sure why any of this is QFC’s fault. I think what they are doing is a sad reflection of how out of control our city has become.
To whomever wrote this article: You clearly do not see what is happening around you. Do you actually live and work in Cap Hill? People are constantly stealing. Constantly. All fucking day stealing stealing stealing. Yea it’s sad that we have all these people drugged out of their minds living on the street but it isn’t fair to the employees to just allow it to continue. The Seattle city government has done absolutely nothing to address the issue so unfortunately these measures are put in place to narrow the scope. Yea Kroger is a shit company but when you’re operating in a city that openly tells homeless people it’s ok so “steal to survive” instead of actually addressing the issues at hand what do you do? Employees are literally not allowed to do anything but watch and sometimes they still get caught in then crossfire. Just the other day I saw a woman throw a jar of pickles at a cashier’s head as she ran out the door with a duffle bag filled to the brim. If you’re upset about inconveniences you have to deal with when getting your ice cream maybe it’s time you wake up and take up your grievances with the city council.
It’s also only a couple of ice cream cases that have been locked up, the most expensive brands. From reading this article, you’d have thought it was the entire ice cream aisle.
I have stopped at the QFC on Mercer Island a few times on the way back from Eastern Washington. The quality is higher and the prices are much lower. We are definitely paying a premium in Seattle to cover the cost of operating a business in leftist dystopia.
I live around the block and have gotten to know many of the workers at QFC, including several managers.
If you talk to them, they’ll tell you the place is a battle zone. Homeless (or whatever the PC term is now) people whacked out on drugs or suffering from acute yet untreated mental illness terrorize the place. Shoplifting is a huge issue because crazy/drugged out people will just take anything and walk out.
I was upstairs in the wine area and watched a drugged out (or perhaps just mentally ill) guy punch an employee in the face. Knocked right to the floor. I later learned the same guy keeps coming in and he was never ever charged with anything — because he’s homeless and this is Seattle and we never charge homeless people with crimes even if they’re incredibly serious offenses.
I know this because we got to know a few homeless/drug addicts in the neighborhood. All of them know they can get away with ANYTHING.
One was a homeless guy who had a serious heroin issue. He decamped into the abandoned home next to us for awhile. One night, we were awoken by police lights in our place. Something happened and the house was surrounded by police. He threatened to kill multiple SPD officers (by name), then he set the place on fire — and he was released THE NEXT DAY. He attacked a tourist walking down Broadway — and he was OUT THE NEXT DAY. He broke all the windows on four cars and at a business on Broadway — admitted it — and he was OUT THE NEXT DAY. He served zero jail time, nor faced any charges much less convictions for any of these incidents. Nothing. In each case, he explained he was homeless and basically the drugs made him do it, so the judges referred him to mental or drug counseling (not mandatory) and dismissed the case.
This is not isolated. I can give you dozens and dozens of examples. The out-of-her-mind on drugs woman who broke into our house was not charged. The people who squatted in the empty house next to us were simply escorted out by SPD — even though there were thousands of dollars of stolen electric bikes inside.
Meanwhile, a friend who got drunk at a Seahawks game and was trash talking some fan from another city afterward got charged with assault. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 DAYS IN JAIL. He was fined thousands of dollars and lost his job. He didn’t threaten to kill a police officer, didn’t set anything on fire, didn’t attack a random woman on the street nor break out windows. The inequity is disturbing.
Our heroin pal routinely goes into the QFC. I found him one day with packages of bacon down his trousers. I asked where he planned to cook it, and he realized he hadn’t through that through. He put it back — and grabbed three half gallons of of high-end ICE CREAM. You don’t have to cook it. It’s immediate gratification. I offered to buy it for him and he just walked out with it.
The last four times I’ve been in the store, there has been some kind of altercation. \
Well said. It’s really strange times in Seattle – absolutely nobody benefits from the status quo other than the criminals and addicts themselves.
Perhaps if the City Council didn’t allow the homeless to take over the City and create an atmosphere where theft and crime are destroying businesses all over Seattle, QFC wouldn’t have to do this to stay in business.
I don’t see any of this as a problem. I go to the Broadway Market QFC all the time and it seems fine. I don’t see any unhappy workers.
This must be one of those things unhappy people like to bitch about.