New World Metro, Wellington Railway Station

 

Rating: 7 /10 Complaints

- Inconvenience, Slowness, Poor Quality, Misleading, Price, Annoying, Limited

This place replaced two kiosks at Wellington Station that sold tickets, chips and candy floss so I suppose it's an improvement on that. It has a convenient location, decent staff who do their level best against a constant influx of harried commuters and convenient opening hours but I’m afraid that’s about it.

It's probably the most expensive New World I've ever been to, and that's really saying something given that New World seems to be aimed at the leisured and moneyed demographic (darling). Expect a basic sandwich with misleadingly arranged fillings to set you back at least $7 and prepare to be sorely disappointed by the selection of items. The choice on offer is between a small handful of equally premiocre brands and if you're after something specific, don't bother they won't have it and you will end up awkwardly leaving empty handed as all the staff sort of eyeball you.

For example, they stock the most exhaustive selection of juices I've ever seen including that Arepa stuff, Boss coffee cans and every flavour of sparkling water, but only 3 kinds of cat food and absolutely no sellotape.

I get a lot of food for work from here because I am too disorganised to make lunch for myself most of the time, and it’s really gone downhill since they rearranged the checkouts so that you are forced to walk back and forth along aisles like cattle just to get out of there. The brightly lit, winding displays of junk food go on forever and add at least 10 minutes waiting time. There's always a lot of rushed and stressed people trying to get out of the supermarket before they're made irretrievably late for work. You then have the ordeal of the slowest self checkouts in Wellington going "Unexpected item in the bagging area! Eek! Call the police!" ad nauseam while the staff attempt to herd the crowds in the right direction. It is always faster at this supermarket, to just go to the counter and see a human being and the be fair, they have some really decent human beings.

I'm guessing they've had trouble with people mis-declaring baked goods at the self checkout, as there is this one staff member of about elbow height who insists on checking the contents of all bakery bags before allowing you to scan out and leave.

It’s always super crowded and a very stressful experience trying to navigate, it’s like a rabbit warren and the layout is illogical (3 separate meat sections dotted around at random, one next to the cut flowers and wines) so you spend even more time in there trying to find items. The line for the checkouts often stretches into the main part of the store which creates further confusion as the queue has no beginning and no end. If you think you've joined the queue, you are in fact wrong and need to go to the back of the line. If you think you're not in the queue, be prepared for a rude awakening as you're shoved forward on a human wave and miss out on grabbing anything more than a pack of gum for lunch. Just about the entire store is a queue, they should have a disclaimer at the front door that by entering, you accept that the terms and conditions are queuing indefinitely.

Let's talk about the food and the selection of lunch stuff. Somehow, this supermarket has cracked the code to creating a quiche ($6) with absolutely no flavour despite the tempting appearance. It seems to be mainly potato and unseasoned egg buried under a few bits of quiche filling. It's the equivalent of a landlord painting over rotten drywall with quarter tea semi gloss, calling it a full renovation, charging top rent, banning pets and probably tastes about the same.

I thought the sandwiches were disappointing until I tried the salads. True to New World form, these have an attractive appearance but once opened, you soon realise that the salad bits are just window dressing and the actual salad is mainly lettuce which is invariably past its best. It's so disappointing shelling out $10+ for a healthy snack and turns out you would have been better off just digging an iceberg out of the dumpster behind the store and adding dressing. I also tried buying vegetables separately from here and making my own salads, but the selection is too limited to make anything decent and again, very, very expensive.

The bakery too is a bit disappointing and similarly to the salads and quiches and this supermarket in general, a lush façade hides an insipid interior. Just because a muffin appears to contain blueberries and has a couple of them on top, is no guarantee that you will receive anything more than an oddly spongy inside with a few dots of blue food colouring. People are HUNGRY when they come to this place and I'm sure the rip off is just because they know they can.

The New World exit doors open out to a coffee kiosk that sells frequently burned coffee and the exact same food as the New World supermarket. Some of it is cheaper and some more expensive than in the supermarket, for the exact same items.

Can someone please do something about the checkouts? It doesn’t make much sense to create deliberate bottlenecks in an already busy supermarket. On the bright side, having to come to this place has inspired me to start making my own lunch and skipping the coffee so I guess I will have New World Metro to thank for the savings and health benefits.