Never Going Back, Nasty Attitude Toward Customers!
I have supported Native Sun since 2006, back when the San Jose and Baymeadows locations were open, because I wanted to support a local grocery store. After my visit on April 18 at 5:34 p.m., I will not be returning.
During that visit, several items were priced incorrectly. A frozen item called “My Bacon” was labeled $6.29 but rang up as $10.29. Ginger juice was labeled $3.79, but rang out at $3.99. To be fair, the lower pricing was eventually honored. The real problem was the nasty attitude I got for pointing out their own mistakes.
John, the man who identified himself as the store manager, handled the situation with open rudeness, hostility, and nastiness. Instead of apologizing for repeated pricing errors, he acted irritated and spiteful that I noticed them. After checking one of the prices and confirming that I was right, he said, “next time it’ll be $3.99,” in a nasty tone. That comment was petty, unprofessional, and exactly the kind of thing that should disqualify someone from a customer-facing management role.
A competent manager apologizes for the store’s mistake, corrects it, and moves on professionally. John did the opposite. He treated being corrected as a personal insult and chose to take that irritation out on the customer. That is not leadership. That is ego and incompetence.
When I asked who the owner was, he resisted answering and told me to look it up online before finally acknowledging it was Aaron Gottlieb. No apology, no accountability, no professionalism. Just defensiveness and a nasty attitude.
What makes this even more ridiculous is that the store has a quote displayed prominently in the seating area about kindness, while management clearly does not practice it. The hypocrisy is hard to miss when that message is sitting in plain sight and customers are being treated with contempt a few feet away.
I also find it telling that the store manager’s name is not clearly listed on the website. For a customer-facing business, store leadership should not be this difficult to identify when there is a serious issue with management conduct.
I supported this business for 20 years out of loyalty to a local store. That loyalty was clearly misplaced. There are too many other healthy grocery options, both physical and online stores, to keep spending money at a store where management behaves like this. Native Sun lost a long-time customer, and deservedly so.