Instacart versus Amazon Prime Now versus Mercato

I was supposed to receive an order from Mercato last Friday. I got a text that my delivery was complete, but there was nothing at my front door. I texted the number I had received the original text from asked where was my delivery. Got no answer. I began looking at neighbors’ front porches and sure enough it was mis-delivered a few doors down from me. Later on I got an email from Mercato asking me to review the delivery. I gave them a poor rating and explained why. Never heard back from them yet.

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That has happened to me with frequency for Amazon packages pre-pandemic (although thankfully not during the pandemic). I’ve also had that problem through the years with various delivery services. I think Mercato uses DoorDash’s network for delivery so it’s just a matter that you happened to get a careless delivery person from the ranks of the independent contractors who do deliveries.

Yikes! I was hoping to place an order from some of the Farmeres Market grocers via Mercato this week as I’m starting to run low on stuff…but now I’m thinking I may just head over to the Market on Sunday morning when it’s nice and quiet and do a fast run through the place. I probably need to get out of my place and see some daylight anyways…

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Me too. I’ll probably call a couple places to pre-order.

@Omotesando & @JeffOC - I actually don’t think it’s common or acceptable to search for your delivered items at your neighbors - provided you give them the right address and delivery instructions. Our accounts specify the entrance is downstairs to the back of the house, meaning it’s not easy. We haven’t had a problem from Amazon, Yummy or Chewy and on delivery services like Postmates & Mercato I reiterate when they send notice of pending delivery. Deliverers also have customer phone numbers. Mixups are due to carelessness, period. :slightly_smiling_face:

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They missed a few places:
Restaurant Depot
Newport Meat

And if they’re including wholesale places that always sold to the public:
Universal Seafood
Port Town Foods
LAX-C
Daniels Western Meat Packers (via @Jase)

Does anybody know if Yoko’s Seafood sells to the public? It’s been on my list a while since they are unusual in publicly posting their prices (which I think are priced well enough to be considered wholesale but I’m no seafood expert).

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Here’s a spreadsheet from Hidden LA of restaurants that are selling groceries. Shows neighborhood and type of offerings.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1PUnnQeNmqJiXbnUle5NzsDgxJzDfbRfMwE8ehasOmk4/htmlview

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Slight clarification, Daniels normally doesn’t sell to the public.

Does anyone have experience with Canton Food? Is everything in bulk packages? Or is the produce and meats in more manageable sizes?

They don’t usually sell with an online shop but if you contact them directly I don’t think you need a business license to purchase from them- they were on my list to purchase from unlike Rocker Brothers who never agreed to sell me anything.

I’ve purchased from them quite a bit. Some things are pretty bulk sized (like cases of meat, boxes of tomatoes, large bags of produce like LAX-C) but others you can buy individually. It’s where I get single boneless legs of lamb, duck, etc. They are VERY clear about not allowing photography which might be why it’s a little hard to lurk on Yelp before visiting.

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Got it. Interesting, on their site they said they didn’t sell to the public before.

RE: Canton Food

Thanks! I was thinking of produce and some meats but if they’re in large packages, it might not be viable. I was hoping that with their location and hours, if I hit them early there would be minimal people…

Did that seem like I meant customer carelessness? I meant driver carelessness. :relaxed:

I tend to get produce from LAX-C (spinach in I think a 2lb bag, 4 heads of cauliflower at a time, tofu) and lamb and duck from Canton Food. If I were buying a bunch of stuff right now I might try and get it all from Restaurant Depot

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Yah, that’s great. Except the store employees assembled and bagged our stuff, put it in the cooler, but didn’t know it hadn’t been picked-up until the next day when I called. I still blame Mercato for this. The store employees bent over backwards to make things right.

Mercato’s dealing with exponential growth so things will go wrong.

It’s still good that employees pack the order. I’m done with Instacart and other services that use untrained gig workers shopping along with regular customers.

I did experience this and a longer than usual wait time with Yummy Market for the first time recently. Like The Rolling Stones said - I didn’t get what I wanted (certain brands) and they were out-of-stock on many things, but I got what I needed (water, bread, peanut butter, san lucas ribeyes, tofu, vegetables, sesame oil, kerrygold, cats favorite food, vegenaise! ice cream, booze).

They’re a small company and definitely feeling the squeeze with new customers and demands. The 2-hour wait they’ve been promising was finally realized :smile: but compared to grocery deliveries taking days or cancelling I still think they’re the ticket.

Yah, I agree. That’s another thing I like about Yummy - everything (shopping, bagging, delivering) is done by Yummy employees. We’ll watch and see how Mercato develops. This is a trial-by-fire for them.

Things ain’t easy but it could be much worse.

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This is great, thanks!

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Wanted to share my experience with Mercato. Overall we had a pretty mixed experience. The plus is that we were able to get some excellent produce and poultry from the Original Farmers Market in Mid-City, and we are happy to have tried some great new stuff.

The good

  • Awesome selection, mostly reasonable prices for the quality. Never cooked a turkey leg or duck fat before, and the fresh herbs were excellent.
  • No stress over getting an available delivery slot, although ordering from multiple vendors pushes back the first available date.

The bad

  • The two week trial for free delivery is great, but the minimum order for free delivery is $35. This would normally be fine but the vendors we ordered from focus on either produce or meat. Seems like they should make an exception for the Original Farmers Market, where everything is grouped together.
  • We had two delivery drivers (contracted through Doordash) since we ordered from two different vendors, although both are at the Original Farmers Market.
  • The delivery drivers arrived at the exact same time and did not maintain their physical distance from each other. Neither of them wore face coverings.
  • The andouille sausages we ordered were out of stock and weren’t delivered. Mercato still charged us for it, and their customer service didn’t respond to my message within 48 hours as promised. I sent a follow up to them after a week and still nothing. Ended up filing a chargeback with my credit card for the sausages.
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We got an Instacart delivery from Costco this morning. I ordered 28 items; 6 were substituted for similar products (cheeses and prepared entrees). The only thing I couldn’t get was Kleenex cubes. I’d filled the cart last night but there were no delivery times available. Went back to it at 7:30am and got a 5 hour window; delivery came at 10:30. All but the rotisserie chicken were in sealed containers so we sprayed all of them with Lysol on the porch and wiped down the packages with warm water once they were inside.

Probably overkill but made us feel better. We haven’t been anywhere but a pharmacy drive thru window and a couple of pizzas-in-the-trunk in 3 weeks. Think something Asian in the trunk soon.

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