UPDATED RESPONSE: Wegmans

Target: Wegmans
Web-Site: http://www.wegmans.com
What they are: Awesome Grocery Store
Date: April 2, 2009

Good afternoon,

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about my experience at your Chili store while in the Rochester area on business last weekend.

For the past 33 years I have worked as a custodial architect for a small firm east of Pittsburgh. As you can imagine my job takes me all over the planet. I've seen bidets at the Eiffel Tower, commodes in Istanbul and even once graced the Queen's throne in Buckingham Palace. To cut War & Peace in half.......I've seen a lot of restroom facilities. And I would just like to take a moment to congratulate your store on having one of the finest facilities my 57 year old eyes have ever seen.

Upon entering your restroom I was immediately drawn to the faucets. The beautiful shape and washing area was so inviting I would have had no qualms whatsoever about washing my 10 month old grand-son Vincent under its heavenly showers. At only 10 months he can already tell the difference between a round and elongated toilet seat.

I was also impressed by the layout of the restroom with ample urinals for your customers. I would have spent more time enjoying them, but my visit today required that I spend my time in the bio-stable.

Your toilets were not only comfortable, but upon taking closer measurements I determined they had a near perfect seat-to-cheek ratio. The seat height was also up to current ITA standards of 15" or more inches from the floor. Believe it or not, many modern lavatory designers do not account for the increases in average human height in the past 60 years. This type of engineering marvel is usually confined to only the finest evacuation facilities on the planet.

I know most of you will be quite puzzled by my correspondence, but when you spend 33 years looking for the Holy Grail of restrooms and finally find it, you have to tell someone.

I would really appreciate it if you would be able to send along some information on the designer or some photographs of the lavatory, because unfortunately I wasn't carrying my camera.

Thanks so much, I can now retire a complete man,

Roger Podacter

FIRST RESPONSE FROM WEGMANS:

Hello. Thanks for your e-mail.

I'm sorry we don't have any photos to share with you.

We appreciate your kind comments though and hope you have a great day.

Sincerely,

Wegmans Consumer Affairs


SECOND RESPONSE FROM WEGMANS:

Good Day Mr. Podacter,

On behalf of Wegmans I would like to thank you for your commentary regarding the customer restrooms at the Chili Paul location. This location is one of our showcase stores so we institute all of our newest ideas first there to test out prior to installing in our other stores. A while back the ADA act of 1990 mandated that public locations install safe, customer friendly toilets and sinks, so with that we did the following:

· We installed the Ferguson low flow dual pump toilets with an alarmed backflow device to prevent splashes on our customers

· The faucets are ergonomically correct to prevent carpel tunnel for our frequent users

· For sanitary conditions we installed electric hand dryers (unfortunately too often these are misused)

· Our toilet seats are from Argentina, they make the sturdiest most comfortable seats on the market. Prior to this our Safety department had many complaints about splinters. These Argentina lids/seats are top notch with chrome screws, brass fittings and titanium rods.

· Finally we installed stain free metal around our urinals to prevent discoloration from our customers that do not have good aim

· Valet services were discussed but cost became an issue (hopefully we can revisit this when the economy improves)

Once again thanks for your interest in our restroom facilities and we truly appreciate your comments seeing that you are most qualified to judge our toilet facilities.

Sincerely,

George

(Wegmans Restroom Design Engineer)