So I was in Spar...

projectmayhem

...getting my lunch on when I was approached by a man in a suit with a vaguely mixed British/Irish accent.

In my hand I had at my disposal a nice O'Briens tripple decker sandwich worth about €6.70 with a bottle of lucosade and packet of crisps purchased from Spar.

On my way out the door the suited man asked why I got my sandwich there. He was nice about it, but was adamant that I spend €3 extra because of the O'Briens "hype machine" that makes their food out to be more fresh and tastey then Spars. I informed him that I have had baguettes from Spar on a regular basis, etc. etc.

I then said "I bet you're the district manager"... and he said no, that in fact he's the owner.

I so wanted to turn around and tell him his food doesn't taste as fresh as O'Briens, and his staff barely speak English... but I didn't. So this post is simply me spiritually growing some nuts to tell the owner of Spar what I really wanted to say.

Thank you for your time.

kaimera

PI tbh.

Dragan

If the manager of any shop questioned my purchases outside his store in such a manner he would be very politely told to go and insert his freshly made sandwich in his ass.

projectmayhem

Dragan wrote:

If the manager of any shop questioned my purchases outside his store in such a manner he would be very politely told to go and insert his freshly made sandwich in his ass.

normally i'd agree but he was being polite and gave me a few "get out" times... the weird thing is he tried to convince me i was ripped off because the quality is the same in spar (it isn't, from personal experience) and that they're going to do a club thing soon where you get a free coffee with your sandwich/baguette.

sales pitch to the max, but to two people (myself & my accomplice)

biko

If you don't tell the manager what's wrong with the sambos he can't fix it.
Always complain, otherwise nothing is fixed [/moral]

patrickolee

Dragon wrote:

If the manager of any shop questioned my purchases outside his store in such a manner he would be very politely told to go and insert his freshly made sandwich in his ass.

I don't think that would improve the taste... but each to their own.

Dave!

Join a club/society or travel

sdanseo

Sounds like he was doing some field research tbh, wondering why his sandwiches aren't selling and O'Brien's are. Maybe he should try one some time :rolleyes:

OP- wuss tbh, you should have told him politely what you thought anbd just maybe he would have taken it on board. If enough people do it the food will become nicer overnight

EdgarAllenPoo

Hang on, you paid €6.70 for a sandwich. Do you also wipe your arse with €50 notes?

You could buy a loaf of bread and cheese(as an example) and make ten sandwiches for that money. Feck convenience, that's robbery.

sdanseo

GDM wrote:

Do you also wipe your arse with €50 notes?.

They do have a nice feel to them don't they...:rolleyes:

Irish Wolf

What flavour crisps?

projectmayhem

sdonn_1 wrote:

OP- wuss tbh, you should have told him politely what you thought anbd just maybe he would have taken it on board. If enough people do it the food will become nicer overnight

it's not that Spar food is bad. it is what it is... it's not as good as O'Briens though

GDM wrote:

Hang on, you paid €6.70 for a sandwich. Do you also wipe your arse with €50 notes?

it was a tripple decker, toasted, with ham, cheese, chicken, butter, red onion, lettuce, coleslaw and tomato. all fresh, tastey and prepared for me. well worth that price IMO.

but yes, i do wipe my arse with €50 notes. but then i spend the notes on sandwiches... not in spar. keep in mind i don't go to o'briens on a daily basis. i rotate various places. o'briens is my "fancy shmancy" place (today is payday)...

FlutterinBantam

Dragan wrote:

If the manager of any shop questioned my purchases outside his store in such a manner he would be very politely told to go and insert his freshly made sandwich in his ass.

Jeebus.. what an archaic and unenlightened attitude.

FFS the guy was just trying to find out the punters point of view.

Is it any wonder the country is in the state it's in??

keen

The owner of Spar telling you that you were ripped off at O' Briens?

That's rich, Spar seems to be the dearest shop when it comes to anything bar the deli from my experience.

Cornflakes, sweets drinks etc.

it was a tripple decker, toasted, with ham, cheese, chicken, butter, red onion, lettuce, coleslaw and tomato. all fresh, tastey and prepared for me. well worth that price IMO.

I paid €5 today for a normal panini with ham, cheese chicken and red onion in Spar so when your compare that to your triple decker I was ripped off.

Niamho!

biko wrote:

If you don't tell the manager what's wrong with the sambos he can't fix it.
Always complain, otherwise nothing is fixed [/moral]

Agreed.

Niamho!

That triple Decker sounds gorgeous!! *Drool*

CantGetNoSleep

O'Briens staff barely speak english either

Tabnabs

You could always write a letter to addressed to the manager and tell him that on reflection you don't buy sandwiches in his shop because XYZ.

Or is that just too sensible?


BTW, in my local O'Briens the staff are all chinese and in my local Spar the staff are all Irish (still wouldn't spend that kind of money on a sandwich from them )

Gizzle

GDM wrote:

Hang on, you paid €6.70 for a sandwich. Do you also wipe your arse with €50 notes?

You could buy a loaf of bread and cheese(as an example) and make ten sandwiches for that money. Feck convenience, that's robbery.

Ah, but then you're sandwich hasn't been lovingly cradled and smothered by a good looking Eastern European.

MarkR

I'm hungry now. I'd kill you all for a nice club sandwich and chips.

Black Swan

projectmayhem wrote:

I so wanted to turn around and tell him his food doesn't taste as fresh as O'Briens, and his staff barely speak English... but I didn't. So this post is simply me spiritually growing some nuts to tell the owner of Spar what I really wanted to say.

Well, ye just broadcast your displeasure to the (cyber)world.

dubmick

O'Briens have some neck charging €6.70 for a takeaway sambo

mise_me_fein

Hmmm, this is quite a story. I was intending on telling my mates about it tomorrow night but it's so interesting and evokes so much in the mind that I think I'll tell them tonight.

Keep up the good work

jor el

Well done that Manager/Owner I say. He saw that you had a sandwich you'd paid about €6 for, and was curious as to why you would spend that when he has sandwiches for €3. Now, like any good businessman, he decided to try to find out so he can possibly get a cut of that business (it seemingly being quite lucrative).

Personally I would grudgingly pay €6 for a sandwich if it was the only option. What you get in Spar for €3 is more than enough for me. I do like a Subway every now and again though, and they're usually quite expensive.

Overheal

it was a tripple decker, toasted, with ham, cheese, chicken, butter, red onion, lettuce, coleslaw and tomato. all fresh, tastey and prepared for me. well worth that price IMO.

that sounds on par with the kebab place I went to last week: 7.20 for the best steak sandwhich you ever had: hot, toasted, with fresh flat strips of tenderloin and onions and mayo and peppers and and and... woof. I want another, even though I sooo can't afford one.

People keep going to O'Briens in my humble opinion (WHY CANT WE JUST ALL SPELL IT OUT?) is cos its different - we're sick to death of that assembly line look and feel: the layout at O'Briens just seems more comfortable and not to mention clean. Helps too when you dont have tacky photo-stickers of your sandwhiches right on the sneeze guard where the real food is sitting....

Subway kicks the living piss out of O'Briens. I find it appalling that you're willing to pay €6.70 for a feckin sambo. You'd get a lot more in a Subway as well. But, it's you're money and you can do what you want with it. As long as saps keep paying the prices, they'll keep going up.

Today for lunch i got a roll from Front Page News agents on O'Connell St. Mayo, Ham, lettuce, onions, peppers and mustard. Less than €3. I brought my own cheese in 'cos over the last 2-3 years it seems that every Deli in the city has decided that they can exclude it from the list of salads and charge 40c-80c per slice. In the Centra across the road from me, extra cheese is dearer than extra meat. The same roll there (if i didn't get bring my own cheese in) would be c. €5.20.

Wossack

spirit balls < real balls

spurious

I get a sandwich in O'Brien's daily that costs €3.70.

I was away from my current workplace for a couple of years and on my first day back in O'Brien's for lunch the young Chinese woman who works there remembered how I liked my sandwich (no butter, just mayonnaise) - I was well impressed.

I don't like buying food in Spar/Centra/Londis - I always get the impression stuff sits there for hours. Subway smells remind me of processed baby food (bleurgh).

Maglight

Dragan wrote:

If the manager of any shop questioned my purchases outside his store in such a manner he would be very politely told to go and insert his freshly made sandwich in his ass.

What's that relish called and do they sell it in Tescos?

HashSlinging

CantGetNoSleep wrote:

O'Briens staff barely speak english either

LOL you just reminded me of a time I spent a whole 5 minutes explaining a bacon sambo and latte to a non-english speaking person working in O'Briens, it look a whole of 20 minutes to make, I ended up getting so stressed about it, that, I ended up telling my boss to fu*k off on the phone when he rang me about a complaining client.. Laugh I did and out loud. . then went home to bed.

MagicMarker

Tripledeckers are gorgeous and are worth any price. Although i only pay about 450 or thereabouts for one outside the square... Yum.

Although, imho, you cannot beat a cheese steak footlong Sub!!! Heaven in a roll.

monkey tennis

projectmayhem wrote:

he tried to convince me i was ripped off

€6.70 for a sandwich? You were played like a fiddle.

Dudess

I agree with spurious on Subway - that smell is not appealing. As for whether the Spar/Centra/Londis stuff is left sitting there for hours, I think it depends on the particular shop. The Spar I go to does food of very high quality and freshness.
I refuse to make purchases in O'Briens if I can avoid it - it's really appallingly expensive. If you order a toastie, you get one miserably thin slice of cheese and if you ask for more cheese you have to pay extra.
Recently I was waiting for the bus to Cork on Westmoreland Street. It was delayed by an hour and a half. I was getting peckish while waiting so I caved in and got a sandwich in O'Briens which is right at that bus stop.
The bread was so stale I had to bring the sandwich back. So I think the level of freshness depends on the individual shop.

beans

You always smell there's a Subway in the vacinity before you see it. In that respect, Subway are the urine-soaked hobos of the fast-food world.

Poxyshamrock

You can't beat O'Briens...the king among king of sandwiches!!!

Mint Sauce

pick up my lunch in the local centra, usually get as much or as little as i want on a baggete or a bap for between 3 and 4 euro, only problem is their butter spreading techneque, usally end of with a big lump of it in the middle which is not nice to bite through

head to subway if i'm in town on my day off, beautiful, but kills me with heart burn

ghostdancer

A+ thread.

DeBeere

Bagels ftw.

BrandonBlock

Who cares how people spend their money, it's their choice not yours. If someone gave me a chicken&bacon tripledecker toastie from o'briens - and the same from spar, I would know the difference straight away. You pay extra in o'briens because they are better quality.

Dudess

O'Briens does use its own bread, which I suppose is better than forking out a few euro for a sandwich made with Pat The Baker or Brennans.

eoin5

I get lunch from Supervalu. Usually costs me less than 3 euro. A short roll and an apple or banana. Its pretty crap but its better than anything else around. I live in maynooth and theres at least 10 places where I could get my lunch btw. There was a place next door that was good but its gone now, guess why...

RasTa

Jesus chirst 6.70 for a sambo, what a feckin sucker. I bring my lunch to work and spend less then that on bread, cheese, colesaw and 5 slices of ham, turkey or chicken and that lasts me a week!

Binomate

Centra is where it's at. For the way we live today.

Terry

I brown bag it.

Now I know what you are thinking.
'There he goes, using a ****ing Americanism'.

Well the thing is, in my brown bag I have beer.

Naikon

Spar FTW!!!
O briens is overrated tbh, the food is average at best and while not super expensive, it does not represent good value for money like spar/Centra.
Subway is ok, but just a tad bit too processed and they are also the Mcdonald's of deli fare tbh.

EdgarAllenPoo

I have fond memories of that footlong meatball Sub, I used to call it a bog buster. Cut it in two and you have all the food you need for a whole day but after you've eaten the whole thing your arse starts to think it can yodel, hence the name.

JIZZLORD

what i dont like about subway is how they always ask do you want it toasted with cheese.

Me: howya, could i get a cheese steak sub on hearty italian.
Staff: Do you want it toasted with cheese?

FFS if it has cheese in the title don't offer cheese!
that's that off my chest

Pepe LeFrits

O'Briens sandwiches are very poor, and very over-priced.

There are many superior places to buy sandwiches in Dublin.

Red Alert

The food in most of the centra's is very good. I don't like Subway at all - don't know why.

Cheeky_gal

Whoever invented subway....GENIUS!!! Those meat baguettes..dunno wat ya call it...on a herb and cheese footlong...mmmm

O'briens do do great sambos..best cappuccinos too! Way ott in price tho! Especially if you're gonna sit in...a sambo and cappuccino -> €8-50...

Best place to go for lunch tho...the unicorn...!!! Amaaazing...now thats bloody expensive!

Raskolnikov

Subway is rank.

Admittedly, I do like the choice of breads they offer, but the fillings are pure rubbish. The cheese is the most horrible, artificial concoction you can get in Christendom. The meat is processed to such an extent it isn't recognisable. Oh, and the tomatoes taste nothing like tomatoes.