Showing posts with label fairmount. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairmount. Show all posts

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Wegmans, Fairmount

3577 West Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY 13219-2002
Grade: B+

But seriously, I really was at Wegmans last night. The Farimount location has an extremely nice men's room that is loaded with convenient features, but upon my viewing it simply was nowhere near as clean as it should have been.

I'll start with the good. The restroom's decor is very calming, with earth-toned floor and wall tiles and modern, under-the-mirror lighting for the sinks.




The urinals, toilet and faucets are all automatic, and the paper towel dispensers offer a hands-free design (though each had to be cranked once to produce a new sheet while I was there). The toilet's auto-flushing mechanism proved to be very sensitive, as it flushed while I was crouched in front of the toilet studying the toilet seat cleaner (more on this below).





The hand dryer is standard and adequate, and both soap and hand sanitizer dispenser are included beside the sinks.


Mounted beneath the sink is a pull-down child step, so that children may reach the basins and wash their hands on their own. This is a nice touch that undoubtedly gives kids a sense of independence and accomplishment.


Possibly the most interesting feature of this restroom -- and certainly a feature I have never seen in any other facilities -- is the toilet seat cleaner. This is a dispenser mounted beside the toilet that emits a sanitization liquid so that one might clean the toilet seat off before sitting on it. The illustrated instructions show that you should use a square of toilet paper to collect the liquid and wipe the seat down. This is a nice thought, as employees obviously cannot get in to clean the toilets every single time they are used.



Despite all of these flourishes, though, the restroom stilled appeared untidy. Much as with the Sheetz I reviewed a few weeks ago, the facilities smelled pleasantly of cleaning solution, the floors were still drying from being mopped and a "wet floor" sign was prominently displayed, but whoever had done the mopping had clearly not taken the time to tend to the excess water/used paper towels on the countertop or the overflowing garbage bin. Also, a package of extra toilet paper rolls lay only partially beneath the sink, which only added to the cluttered feel. It is always a good thing to have refills available, but one would think that they would have a storage closet in which to keep such items, and that the employees should be checking the restroom frequently enough to refill toilet paper when it gets low, thus eliminating the need to have a package just lying about like this.






Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Target, Fairmount

3657 West Genesee St., Syracuse, NY 13219
Grade: B+


Wow. Target stepped its game up. Actually, I'm not sure if that's accurate. I don't think I've ever actually been inside a Target men's room to even compare against this one. Has anyone? Ever? Usually, I am too busy being completely captivated by the vast array of stationary and faux-antique wicker laundry bins to pay my bodily functions any mind. Usually, I just stalk through the aisles doing my Steve Martin from "The Jerk" thing: "I need this... I need this..."

Anyway, let's just say I was surprised. The men's room is clean with bright lights and extremely modern decor in the standard Target/White Stripes (I wonder what their bathroom is like?) white and red color scheme. There is an insanely-polished chrome Xlerator dryer (peep the Steelers tee and Nike Air Maxes vividly reflected in the pic below) and the same urinal bowls (though not auto-flushing) found in the well-reviewed Fairmount Panera. Perhaps the entire shopping center got some sort of tax credit by buying these in bulk.

The sink basins and fixtures are stainless steel, and the water is automatic. There was one horribly clogged toilet (not pictured for your health), though I will consider this an anomaly.

In general, the restroom looks something like THX-1138:


Except nothing like that. It looks more like:




 



As a bonus, I did find an image of the actual THX-1138 bathrooms:




Friday, August 6, 2010

Panera Bread, Fairmount

3401 West Genesee St., Syracuse, NY 13219
Grade: B+


Not too shabby. This men's room is clean and modern with decorative tiles and warmly painted walls. Auto-flushing urinal is a plus. The lighting is soft and comforting - so much so that the old guy I was waiting on to leave so I could take pictures actually relieved himself very, very rapidly.

The one drawback is that the sink drained extremely slowly, but I'm sure this is not a recurring problem. In general, you could apply the same term to this Panera's restroom that you could to their menu: faux-yuppie.