aibu to not understand the view on waitrose here :)

[mummywithsmiles]

Do only certain people shop there ?

I wish more branches had cafés because I don't fancy walking around the store or outside with my shopping and drinking even though it's free (and I'm not an oink!).

I agree with the comments that it's not as expensive as the reputation suggests, at least not for some items. But generally speaking it's quite costly but it's such a pleasant shopping experience I don't mind paying a bit more.

Favourite items are spiced peach chutney and chocolate Berliner doughnuts.

Ha moomin I must bring the standards down :) ...I've never experienced being judged or anything in there though.

"I was just wondering as here its just a normal shop everyone shops in didn't mean to offend"

We don't have a Waitrose in the two nearest towns to me. My nearest one is a 30 mile round trip, half of which is busy town driving.

A "normal" supermarket round here is Morrisons, Tesco and Asda. We don't even have a Sainsburys

Plus you get free coffee every time you go there, that alone is enough to lure me in.

They do meat on 3 for £10 like all throat her supermarkets but theirs is better, unquestionably.

I've no actual experience of Waitrose due to there being none around here. It's posts on MN that seem to make it clear that only a certain class of people are welcome and I'm the complete opposite of that class.

Forgettable - Booths still won't deign to move across to the Northeast. I'll be impressed with them when there's one in Durham - the city that Waitrose deserted.

Other not throat her!

Bunbaker we have via siansburys but it isn't worth walking in to as it sells barely anything. So we shop in wait rose ,Iceland or pound land that's my cupboards came freezer :)
Our one was a Safeway before they bought it.

And this M&S customer does the best part of a week's shop there, every week - then buys bananas, sausages and a trolley load of crap in Sainsburys, the next day :o

And I'm always delightful to the staff. Even when there's someone in front of me with 8 different cakes and pudding spread along the entire conveyor belt.

Grumpy I promise it really is not like that , I'm really common and def lower class and I have never experienced anything judgemental in there .

Totally agree that only certain people like to shop there. They like to differentiate themselves from the proles by saying things in otherwise benign conversation such as "my xx called me up to have a right good moan just as I was whizzing around Waitrose" or "sorry can't make such and such as waiting for my Ocado shop". I tried it once when on holiday. Ready meals which I thought would give me some time off cooking overly salty and horrible. Fruit and veg ridiculously expensive. Other customers wealthy retired. Did my head in.

Well I shop in Waitrose and Morrison's, what does that say about me? I must have some kind of internal class warfare going on.

It's only a supermarket.

Their budget range is good quality unlike other supermarkets. And their budget mince is the only edible one.

They let us in and we are as common as they come.

I am the kind of person that MN aspiration types would look down on and I have never been made to feel unwelcome in Waitrose.

Aspirational

There are two Waitroses in Edinburgh and they're both in posh parts of town. I live in a Tesco/Asda area

Waitrose bagels are terrible. Like normal white loaf, doughnut shaped.

Our waitroses are in areas that could be perceived as posh, I travel in.

Me too, I am always looking over my shoulder waiting to be spotted and removed back to a more suitable postcode.

I love Waitrose - for the high-end stuff when they've got those red labels on, the ones with serious reductions. I just take my glasses off and put them on when a red label is spotted. Have had some lovely, cheap munchies that way.
Taking my glasses off helps me ignore the other customers too and they don't look too bothered by my presence anyway, probably following their own ignore-others approach (which could be why it's got its snooty reputation). It is possible to pick up a basic cheap shop while you're there as long as you don't veer from your 'cheap list'. I don't go as often as I used to (moved) and do miss containing my laughter at such things as 4xiced cupcakes for nigh on a fiver, for sale in a small town surrounded by mud and animal crap.
I do appreciate the ethos of customer service though because it does reflect in the attitudes of the staff and the wait times at the till.

We have Waitrose, Tesco x 2, Sainsburys, budgens,Aldi, all of them except Morrisons.

So on days off I get to be a shop tart and Waitrose works out about the same as the rest. There's just more temptation there.

Staff are all lovely

I'm another Waitrose fan. Shopping there is just so easy and relaxed.

It is complete myth that some people are not welcome. It is like sqoosh says, just a supermarket. I shop in them all. I like Waitrose best but I certainly don't get everything there. I like Lidl but I don't get everything there either. Waitrose have a very good 'essential' range.

LaQueen and LadyMary I love the titchy waitrose store in the City! Don't go there often though as it is a bit pricey. Put the mince back when I saw it was a fiver and nipped across to Tescos for it instead! but only after I bought their yummy cookies .Thanks for telling me about the west bridgeford one. :)

@Squoosh 'You get the best discounts at Waitrose if you're there at the right time.

Much as I love Morrison's their discounted spatchcock poussins are thin on the ground.'

^^
This.

We eat 'naice' meat and pay sub Lidl prices by shopping smartly and freezing the bargains. The day just after Christmas last year when I bagged 3 x £40+ unbaked hams for a fiver a piece is legend. None of your water filled Danish farmed piggery for us... They were blinking gorgeous. Or the whole Salmon on Christmas Eve for £6.

The trick is to go in with a list and a set budget but have access to cash just in case.

The other weekend I got £84.45 of meat for £19.73. Lots of fiddly bits like a huge and very bloody bag of lambs liver from the fresh counter for 70p, but 5% fat extra lean steak mince too and a free range pork roast. I won't be buying meat for at least 2 months. I'd only popped in for one of their own range curry pastes (Keralan is delicious) and a natural yoghurt!

Just wanted to add also. I find the staff in the little one always very friendly.