Latinos Supermarket

Reviews 3

AL

Alec Villanew

The minute I stepped out of my car and heard Celia Cruz’s “La vida es un carnaval” (life is a carnival) blasting out of the glass doors I knew I had come home. I walked in to be mesmerized by the familiar smells, the particular way of rolling the “r’s” in our Spanish, the noisiness and nosey-ness. I felt like Alice must have when she arrived in Wonderland. Yes, of course, I had grocery shopped in other Latin markets. But this experience, along with the variety of produce and prices, was completely different. I was on a quest and a mission. Part of eating clean is making my own sofrito (a delicious concoction made of red peppers, green peppers, garlic, cilantro, culantro, green olives, sweet red peppers – Goya in a glass kind, and ajicitos dulces.) To make the sofrito, you must have ajicitos dulces. They resemble the ones used by the Chinese and Korean, but they are not hot nor are they spicy. They are a bit smaller. You can hold four or five on the palm of your hand and their skin (either red or lime green, never yellow) is corrugated. Not smooth like a jalapeño or Havanero. They are filled with small seeds that must be removed and washed off before the blending of the ingredients. So I was on my mission to make my home-made sofrito and in the quest for ajicitos. I had gone to two other markets and had failed to find any. Latino’s Supermarket had them! Among many other products incredibly familiar to me either because I love eating them or because they are a cliché of my ancestry and culture. I ran up and down the colorful aisles in excitement. My enthusiasm and exclamations became contagious and many people, both employees and customers, called me up to show me even more stuff I had overlooked, but they knew I would love to see. I had gone only to find ajicitos for the sofrito and returned to my apartment with enough groceries to survive through the apocalyptic years. My concierge was baffled, to say put it mildly. I bought yautías, panapén, batatas, platanos and yucca. I bought Rovira soda crackers. I bought guava jelly and cheese to be fried. I bought coffee from the Dominican Republic (which I love.) I bought masa de pastelillos (the dough we use to make empanadas filled with cheese, or meat, of basically anything because we also can make them quite sweet.) I bought fabuloso—all purple and lavender smelling. Fabuloso is one of those cliché cleaning products, we use to mop floors. I kept filling my cart up as I sang some salsa music. The market has a cafeteria area where you can buy cooked food and eat there or take it home with you. This are also caters activities. I did not know it until recently but they had catered Vane’s “ugly sweater party” on Christmas. So I have enjoyed their pastels, arroz con gandules, and lechón. Their flan was also quite amazing. Just when I thought it could not get any better… va va va boom! They had agua florida, velones and spiritual sprays. Yes, a small botanica-like counter! I could get my yuyu clean and my mojo (not referring to sauce here, seek another meaning in dictionary) back. I bought some indigo blue and pink candles, incense and headed home to make some sofrito and redirect my qi. Celia is right: Life is a carnival is you know where to go.

JE

Jennifer Rodriguez

I dont typically give a negative review unless it is an extremely bad or unethical business. After being a customer ever since new management took over, which has been over 5 years, I finally had enough with this business. Every year for Christmas Eve, we order a 40lb pork (pernil, cajita china) over a month in advance and pay $7.99/lb. This translates to $319.99+ and exactly $340 including tax and sides. Although we have noticed theyve been a lot lighter in the previous years than what we paid for, we didnt have time to go back and dispute it. This year, we weighed the pork in the box and it was exactly 20lbs. The box alone is about 3-5lbs so that means the pork weighs only 15-18lbs MAX. We went to come to an AMICABLE resolution and asked either for a refund of half our payment or another pork to make up for the 20lb difference that is missing. Thats 50% of our payment or about $160 they kept from us. They made a bunch of excuses from "someone else may have taken yours" to "we sold you pork and you got pork". As if 40lbs of pork at $7.99/lb is the same as 15lbs of pork. I get this logical argument. NOT! One gentleman that worked there told us that theyd give us our 50% refund and would do anything to make our Christmas dinner better. After about 30 minutes arguing with the cook and frontdesk lady, a higher up manager (Willy) told the staff to give us a full refund and requested that we dont come back to order again. How illogical and unethical can a business be? This is as bad as it gets! A logical businessperson wouldve apologized for the inconvenience and given us our money back or the service/product we paid for. Some would even go as far as throwing something extra in the deal to make up for their mistake. NOT Latino Supermarket of Brandon/Valrico Florida. They think that because we spent 30 minutes arguing with them and they gave us a refund this is not FRAUD or akin to stealing from their customers. Another illogical point made by this unethical business. We know for certain, we are not the only ones they are defrauding with their underweight holiday pork every year which is considered fraud. When we picked up the order, before noticing it was underweight, one of the owners was telling us how they were tired of this business because it is no longer as profitable. I guess their solution to make it more profitable is selling 40lb of pork and only giving customers 15lbs-18lbs. Yes, this is fraud and as someone who has extensive legal experience I will proceed to open an investigation on these fraudulent activities. I ask anyone who orders anything from Latino Supermarket to VERIFY they are getting what they paid for. Its sad that these people have the opportunity to be seen as ethical Latino business owners and instead defraud the very people that helped them grow. They say arrogance is usually what destroys an empire and although they arent an empire, they are already self destructing. Good luck and Merry Christmas, Latino Supermarket! You will need it next year.

NO

Noemi Long

Decided to come here because my family claims they are good. Not! Being here twice and I dont see my self going back for a third time. First visit it was ridiculously crowed. I am a manager in the deli area and after what I saw in the kitchen in that store I dont want to eat again. As the server was getting my food I seen one of the people in the back cleaning and proceeded to use the bottom he was sweeping with to clean the sink! Really??! Second visit went there yesterday and picked up a few groceries. Had them for breakfast this morning and the cheese I picked up tasted rather funky. Looked at the date and it expired Dec 23rd 2016! My daughter and I spit it out immediately after eating one of them. The other block of cheese I bought expired Fed 21 2017. Come on! I called them and she said to return it back I told her I live an hour away I am not going back for just $6 I called so they can check the fridge. Way too crowded for me. The staff is not so friendly and the prices are ridiculously high! Around $3-$6 more for the same thing that you would pay at any other regular stores. No thanks! So yeah not going back. Go at your own risk but it was not a good experience at all. Ill keep going to my other Spanish store thats only 5mins away from me.