william rose butchers (Lounged)

[snorky]

I am still apalled at the fact that people queue up for a bit of meat.

Unsurprising that WR are treating people with contempt, when they see what people are prepared to do every saturday.

[Domitianus]

It's the organic scam again. I think we chatted about this before? I wouldn't queue for the last helicopter out of Hanoi let alone a slab of over-priced flesh.

[Gerrard]

Ummm, well I for one am more than happy to queue up a bit for better quality produce. And at a fair price to boot... The difference in taste between a William Rose chicken and one from Sainsbury's for example, is huge. Snorky, be as appalled as you like, but for better quality produce I for one am more than happy to stand in line.

[mockney piers]

Quite. Are we so spoilt by our me me me now now now culture that we can't queue for 5 minutes for some good quality produce served by people who care?

And yeah, much of the stuff in sainsburys looks downright dangerous, leave alone poor quality.

[Brendan]

I think I?ve said this before but as a kid I clearly remember there always being a queue outside the butcher?s (and the baker?s and the dairy) on a Saturday.

I don?t like turkey anyway and I am considering doing Ostrich with apricot sauce for Christmas dinner.

[SeanMacGabhann]

WR aren't treating anyone with contempt. And the prices are not overpriced. And the queue can be a great way to spend 5 minutes (ooo dear other people? don't tlike thaaaat. best not talk to em eh?)

Through a catalogue of errors (all of my own doing I hasten to add - hands up) I found myself needing to buy some meat on Sunday. Because I hadn't been to Sainsbury's since it re-opened I thought I would give it a try so I took myself down from The Upper East Side (look pa no car!) to Sainsbo's. Won't be doing THAT again in a hurry

More meat than anyone could shake a stick at but almost none that I would buy. From the SERIOUSLY overpriced "good stuff" to the "if you think that's a bargain you should have a look where it came from" cheap stuff I still couldn't buy what I wanted (chicken breat on bone)

And the bedlam in there!!! And I didn't see anyone famous ;-)

Reminded me of Alan Partridge saying he knew how U2 felt when they wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday:

"Sunday Bloody Sunday?. What a great song. It really encapsulates the frustration of a Sunday, doesn?t it? You wake up in the morning, you?ve got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you?ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car, go to the Supermarket and you think Sunday, bloody Sunday!".

Back to my Saturday morning weekly stock-up at WRose - even if I have been to a forum drink-up the night before...

[snorky]

i dont eat meat , which may taint my viewpoint

[SeanMacGabhann]

well, there is that....

[sphillips]

Anyone fretting about their Christmas turkey in mid November deserves to have a fistful of paxo stuffed down their throats, slammed in the cooker and basted every 30 minutes! Get a frozen one. Anyone worth sharing Christmas with is too sozzled to know the difference!

[Keef]

Sean that is my favourite ever Alan Partirdge quote! >:D

[SimonM]

We don't have turkey we have goose. And we order and pay for it online and it is delivered to our door a few days before Christmas from Goodman's Geese (who also do bronze turkeys) at www.goodmansgeese.co.uk. We did try a WR goose one year admittedly...

[Ladygooner]

Better get your turkey orders in quick! Evening Standard are scare mongering today quoting prices will rise to ?100 per turkey due to bird flu culling!

[lozzyloz]

Last Turkey in the shop anybody?

[Brendan]

Turkey is big, good value for money and dry which makes it a great holiday destination but a rubbish meal.

[Jamma]

Please do take your business elsewhere if you're not a William Rose regular, that's one less wanker filling the shop on a Saturday with their little darlings and a 3-wheeled pushchair and acting like every butcher in the shop should drop everything to give them 100% of their attention. Go in, buy your meat, pay, say thankyou and have a good weekend and you won't get any attitude out of any of the butchers

[alachlan]

Or maybe they should do the decent thing a get a bigger shop and start taking card payments. I'm sure I'm not alone in not shopping there because of the inconvenience of having to queue and remembering to take a stack of cash in case I want a slightly bigger piece of meat or an impulse additional purchase. They could clearly generate a much bigger customer base by doing this.

[lozzyloz]

. . . and the change the name to William Sainsburys . . . mmm

[SimonM]

I think one reason the queue at William Rose moves so quickly, despite its length, is that there's no hold-up from people struggling to find cards and/or operate PIN machines, as you soften get at places like S**nsb*ry's. I myself doubt their customer base would increases much, if at all, by their embracing the great God Plastic. And they have certainly tried to expand their premises next door....

[alachlan]

No reason to reduce the quality of the product or the staff working there, just seems to make sense given how many people might shop there if the situation was improved. Despite people bleating that they don't mind waiting in the queue, surely it would be preferable not to?

[david_carnell]

They take cheques if you really can't be bothered to ensure you have ?20 on you before going into a shop.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Is it POSSIBLE to bleat about NOT minding something??

Simon is spot on - if they introduced anything other than cash it would take twice as long to get through everyone waiting. A lot of these people are regulars and seem to somehow manage with having enough cash so it can't be that bad a system

Also for the amount of space they have they employ more people per sq foot than anywhere else I know - count how many people are working/serving in there the next saturday you pass - that's not showing much contempt for their customers I'd say

[alachlan]

I think you'll find a large piece of fillet and a few other bits for the week are considerably more than twenty quid. I'm not going to make the queue worse by writing out a cheque! My point is that they don't really go out of their way to make it a pleasant or efficient shopping experience.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Depends what you mean by pleasant and efficient - that queue rattles down faster than ANY comparable queue for any other service - score efficient

pleasant? I always have good banter and a laugh when I'm in there - save the odd time when someone who has heard about these things called "butchers" and starts poncing on about how exactly they want that 500g to be. It's the only shop I actively look forward to visiting - score pleasurable

[Brendan]

If waiting in a queue is such a problem there are options. You can go to Sommerfield or Sainsbury?s for your meat. Spend 10 minutes negotiating the crowds (I won?t mention the quality of the produce) and then spend another 20 minutes waiting at the checkout where you will have the privilege of paying a surly disinterested cashier by card.

[alachlan]

Well I'm sure I will try it again since the objective here is to get good meat, and hopefully the queue will subside quickly as you say - but the last times I went the queue took ages and inside it was a scramble to get to the counter and I ended up waiting behind people chatting with the butchers about God knows what. Maybe I was just missing the golden regular customer pass.