Obligatory “New Target” post

Yep, I finally got up and headed over to the new Target and I gotta say, while I don’t necessarily agree with what it might herald, it is a really nice store. I know everyone’s been posting a picture like the one above, but not in my blog. It’s very similar to the one I saw years ago in Springfield, two levels and with my favorite thing of all, the shopping cart escalator! Kris mentioned that it looks similar to one in New York, and it seems to work out pretty well design-wise.

The place was clean, like sparkly. I’m sure that may pass, but it looked like they had staff taking care of cleaning duties as well as random stock, nearly every employee I passed asked if they could help me find anything and about 50% of those said good morning and asked how I was doing. It was an interesting slap in the face to the typical DC brand of customer service, so it makes me think that they’ve been cracking down to make sure customers want to come back. I only picked up a few things, but still walked around the entire store to get a feel for the place. To me a Target isn’t really a place for shoes or clothes and I don’t need automotive or sports equipment, but the sundries like cleaning supplies, sheets and towels & kitchen stuff all looked great.

There were a lot of empty racks all over the store, so they’ve clearly been mobbed already and it led to me being unable to find quite a few things that I realized I actually do need. I didn’t look too closely in the grocery area since I’m not used to a Target with one, but I saw some deals that I could easily find myself heading back over for. I also noticed my weight limitation. It seems silly, but for one of the items I was in the market for, a cross-cut shredder, I would have needed a car or a cart or to make my shopping trip specifically for that one thing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t carry it, but I wouldn’t trust a Target mega bag to hold it against gravity while I tried to carry other bags as well.

Since there’s just the one in the area, I doubt this store will get a nickname, however based on this morning’s trip, I’m going to designate it the Cruisy Target, I know that has no alliteration but it’s totally true. The Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights boys were out shopping and shopping today, so maybe I’ll just have to keep scheduling my trips for early Saturday mornings. 😉

There were about 4 or 5 registers open, so I was outta there in no time at all. All in all, a nice experience. The Bed Bath and Beyond looks stocked and ready to open, Marshall’s is scheduled to open on the 20th and Best Buy on the 27th. It will be weird to have such an accessible location to satisfy my retail therapy urges but I would have to say that the DCUSA complex is a good thing.