Brooklyn's IKEA: Havoc at the Checkout Counters This Weekend

So we went to IKEA in Red Hook Saturday to buy a few household supplies and to have lunch. Shoppers were pouring in by bus, car and probably boat as well.

We had a wonderful time looking at the little pretend apartments and even with all of those thousands of shoppers, we got a table in the cafeteria, no problem. (The food, btw, is delicious and reasonably priced.)

But OMG! When we went to check out this is what we found: the lines extended all the way out of the check out area and almost all the way through the self serve furniture area! If you zoom the photo above (by clicking on it), you can just barely see a little blue sign with the number 13 on it way, way in the distance. (UPDATE: We drew a red circle around it because it's almost impossible to see.) That's the check out area. And we were by no means at the end of the line.

We're talking checkout waits of an hour or more.

Flat Packed: People were getting pretty grumpy, let me tell you. A woman jumped ahead of us in line. When we pointed this out, she moved behind us, only to be challenged by the customer back there. She moved behind that customer, only to be berated by the next one. And so she worked her back to the back of the line, irate customer by irate customer.

We were so far back there was no way to even tell if we were in a cash only line or a credit and debit only line. This accounted for some delays, it turns out, because people were finding themselves in the wrong line when they finally got to the checkout counters.

Since there were three members in our party, we split up and communicated via cell phone. One of the lines we were in didn't move for 15 minutes. Seems there was some kind of trouble with someone's credit card up front. Dozens of shoppers were muttering and a small rebellion was starting to break out because nothing was happening.

One of us stood in the checkout line all the way to the right. This eventually turned out to be a good move, because the store sent a cashier to one of the (non-functional, for some reason) self-checkout machines stacked against the extreme right-hand wall.

Though there is no counter there, there is a working register and a scanner, and the management pulled half of our line over into this pseudo-lane. We sent out a code red via cell phone and our party reassembled at the non-lane and checked out.

It took us more than 45 minutes to make it through the lines, even with all of our conniving and rapid response cell phone work. People who couldn't do this -- those with children or unwieldy purchases -- were just screwed.

IKEA, we love you, but something has to be done. Why aren't the self-checkout machines set up? And why are there so many delays at the cash registers? You have to do something about this.

OK, on a positive note, the bus service to Brooklyn Borough Hall is efficient and plentiful. Even on weekends, the buses keep coming, and coming and coming . . .

UPDATE 2: This past weekend was one of the busiest weekends of the year because the 2009 IKEA catalog just came out, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Another interesting fact: The Red Hook IKEA “is one of the highest-performing stores in the country." More here.

- Ducks, Red Hook's Erie Basin
- New York Gets Flat Packed
- Brooklyn Ikea Quote of the Day
- Goodbye Ikea Apartment
- Ikea Setting Up Entire Apartment in Borough Hall Plaza, Brooklyn

Photo by MK Metz

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