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Housewares Department - Bloomingdales
Rating Details »
Category: Kitchen & Bath [Edit]
Neighborhoods: Union Square, SOMAWestfield Shopping Center
845 Market St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 856-5300
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Garage
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
9 reviews for Housewares Department - Bloomingdales
Bloomingdales isn't the first place I would think of for pots, pans, serving plates, and kitchen gadgets, but it has an extensive, up to date, thoughtfully presented array of everything you need. You can outfit an entire gourmet kitchen and dining room from this deceptively large section of Bloomingdale's basement, with everything from the basic staples like silicon baking mats to electric chicken roasters, professional grade knives, and $150 martini glasses from the crystal department next door.
Prices are reasonable and there are frequent sales - last night the popular Rosenthal plates were priced lower than anything online, and they had most of the Le Creusette collection on several large tables organized by color at 30% off - as low as anywhere in town. If you're a thrifty shopper you come out as well here as any department or specialty store in town, so why not enjoy the best? For cleanliness, organization, helpful but not overbearing salespeople, completeness, even lighting and signage, I think they've taken the lead as the flagship all purpose kitchen store in town. It's a pleasure to browse here and examine things, even without buying anything.
Best for last here. Nearly every day there is a cooking demonstration by a professional local chef or caterer, often famous, in a fully stocked demonstration kitchen for a small crowd, usually 10-15 people in the audience. These are sometimes free, and other times they ask you to buy a gift certificate, which you can spend in the store - so it still comes out free. It's a good way to do something different with a friend or date, meet food lovers, save money and stay out of trouble. You get five times the learning per hour as a food TV show, plus you taste the food and can ask questions. This is all run by Holly, a long-time Yelper who posts the events to the Yelp calendar.
Thanks to Yelper Holly, we noticed a food and wine pairing event here a few evenings ago and took Bart over to indulge. The price of some very nice free food and Viader Wines was to buy a couple of Bloomies gift certificates...no sweat! Nice set up, great execution and an easy get there/get back since Bart is right out the door. Thanks again Holly!
I intended on writing a five-star review for this department at Bloomie's...until I received some items I had purchased on pre-sale.
My husband and I went in about 10 days ago to complete some items from our wedding registry. When we arrived, the woman who helped me early this year with making a good number of additions to the registry recognized me and asked how the wedding was, which impressed me, given that she sees so many brides a day! She then paired us up with another associate who was going to help us with getting the items we wanted to purchase. She devoted a good hour to us between tracking down the items in the store and trying to determine how to get the best prices on each item. (They were having a big sale that weekend and the following one, so some items were eligible for a greater discount than the registry completion.) I was so impressed by her willingness to get us the best price possible, in spite of the fact that it would cut into her commission. Now that's customer service!
She also helped resolve a major snafu on the web/mail-order registry's part (which has MAJOR room for improvement...that's another story) - they sent the wrong item to us. In fact, it wasn't even remotely close to what we registered for: we requested a trivet and got a picture frame in exchange! I explained the situation to her, and in a matter of minutes, I had the trivet I had wanted all along.
After I picked up my items on pre-sale and was putting them away last night, much to my dismay, two of the three pieces of china I had purchased have chips in them, which is completely unacceptable. You expect a certain attention to detail on the store's part when you register for high-end china, but such was not the case.
But beyond that, it was especially irritating to me because I suspect that they gave me the display pieces and were trying to pass them off as new. I admittedly was a bit suspicious when the very capable associate who initially helped us said that they had 1 of each in stock (and I know that typically this china isn't in stock and must be ordered because of the manufacturer). I became even more curious about our "new" china when I noticed on my way out of the store that our place-setting on display was now missing some pieces...
Suspicions confirmed when I unwrap the china and discover dust on all of the pieces. I'm especially annoyed with the situation, given that I had purchased a few display items at Williams-Sonoma earlier that day, and the service I received was light years better for items that weren't nearly as expensive as the china at Bloomingdale's:
a. They actually told me that they were selling me display items (since this particular item was out of stock otherwise) and asked me if I was ok with purchasing what they had on display. I'm totally fine with doing so, as long as things are in good condition.
b. The saleswoman then conducted a thorough inspection of each item in the set and caught two small blemishes, which she showed to me and informed me that they would give me a 20% discount for the items, which I thought was more than fair.
c. She then proceeeded to wipe down each item before packaging it for me to ensure it looked as new as possible.
Sadly, I didn't receive similar treatment at Bloomingdale's. This is the straw that broke the camel's back - if you're a bride, save yourself the trouble and register elsewhere. As frustrated as I was with the mail/web-order side of their registry business, the service I received in the SF store each time redeemed it for me. But now that they tried to sell me damaged goods without even telling me, game over.
This place is like heaven. Or maybe it's like hell. I can't decide.
Heaven:
-Tons of amazing cookware, bakeware, etc.
-Knowledgeable and very nice staff
-Amazing demo kitchen where you can see how the pros do it.
**ahhhh.... strolls along in fairytale land dreaming of all the fun things I can do with these great products**
Beep! Beep! Hell coming through...
Hell:
-You look in your wallet and sadly realize that you cannot afford to buy everything you want.
-You get a mental picture of your tiny little apartment and wonder where all this will fit. Who needs a living room right?
Well even though I can't afford to buy everything I want here, or even have a place to put everything I want, this place is still heaven.
If you need anything kitchen related, Bloomies will have it. And if you aren't quite sure what exactly you need, the staff here knows far too much about it all. And if you are looking for something fun to do, check out the demo kitchen and see what's cookin!
Nice selection, really nice demonstration kitchen. Staff is friendly, and the Nespresso people are there a lot doing coffee samples.
Sometimes it's a bit too quiet to be interesting, especially with all of the activity from the Westfield mall's Gourmet Food Court next door. But the table displays and pots appear to be very high-end.
I love the bloomingdales's housewares department because they have a bunch of free cooking classes where local chefs from different restaurants come out and cook something that they like, then let you taste it and give you the recipe. Did I mention that this is all FREE. Para gratis for my Latin amigos. The head chef Holly Le Du is really cool. She's willing to send you any recipes that they aren't able to get to you the day of the class and she's just a really chill lady in general. I wish some of the stuff were a little more in my price range, but I can wait until I graduate from college for that I guess.
german or japanese steel?
i hardly ever buy anything for myself during the holidays, but this year, i decided to splurge on something i've been salivating over for more than a year. a real-life, brilliant, perfect, 8" chef's knife.
the question, though, after countless hours of research on the web, was whether i wanted a shun or wusthof beauty. either blade would have made me happy, i just needed to feel them in my hands, and check their balance and weight.
although the lady at the counter was busy wrapping a full set of shuns she had just sold to another client, she patiently unlocked the cases and spent time with me while i went back and forth with the two knives. and even though my heart truly belonged to the shun, i went with the wusthof because i am a left handed fool (and the shun knives at bloomingdale's were made for right handers, per the saleslady who was informative yet gave me space and time to decide; i never felt like she was upselling me or that she lacked knowledge in the department in which she worked).
she gave me a 10% discount for the one on display (last one) and even went out of her way to figure out a gift certificate purchase through westfield mall, which made her stay past the end of her shift.
bloomingdale's, based on this instance, has incredible customer service. i was greeted warmly with smiles and a, "hello, may i assist you with anything?" about 3 minutes into the shopping experience. the layout of the department store is also very conducive to browsing and window shopping. brightly lit, and professionalism throughout. i don't ever feel like people are hounding me nor do i feel like i am neglected.
i will definitely be back to give the same salesperson my business when i get that $700 set of shuns. after my next bonus, that is.
we did our wedding registry here. it was painless and i liked their selection of fine china and the like. We created out own place settings by mix n matching from other settings/designers. The salesperson was super helpful and pleasant.
So you are probably wondering, why would anyone rate Bloomingdales, I mean with all their prestige and public visibility, what could anyone add, right? Well, let me tell ya, before this weekend, I would have never considered them as a source for Kitchen wares, and oh how wrong I would have been.
I have been looking for new cookware, but something more upscale than what I have at home. I have gone to all the usual places, costco, sur la table, etc and just hadn't settled on anything yet. Then low and behold the Bloomingdale's catalogue comes, now you may be asking yourself, "why is she talking about not considering that store a source if she gets the catalogue?"....it's nice to dream, plus its fun to read in the tub...but I digress...So, in reading the catalogue we see Allclad on sales...yes folks, on sale!!! Being the educated gatherer that I am, I hit the www to see if I can find my beloved pots and pans anywhere at a better price and to my shock....I CAN'T!!! So, off to city we go, minicooper on the ready to fill with lovely pans from "Bloomies".
We arrive with enough time to purchase our lovely pans and some light shopping before heading home. So, to our rating. The lack of sales help was a little frustrating initially, but a very harried, apologetic manager happened by offered his deepest apologies (they were understaffed - to his chagrin) and promised to send someone over post haste. A few minutes later a lovely, though unknowledgable sales clerk arrives and proceeds to assist us with our purchases. Yes, I said purchases, because we ended up buying more than just a few pots and pans, $1,000 later, we left grinning and satisfied with our booty. Once again, she really didn't know much, but she was so helpful and so willing to help us find out whatever we needed to know, that I felt less guilty for shopping in such an upscale store, that previously was just for pretty catalogues to read whilst tubbing away the dirt of my middle class day.
Excellent products
Quality reputation
Inventory available
Nicely displayed products
Warranties that will last longer than my hairdo
all good, except for the lack of staffing, but the stand in's work hard
and that's all I have to say about that....