I’m in South Florida and our only choices are basically Publix, Publix, Publix, or Publix. I don’t know why FL natives love Publix so much - there’s not much of a selection and the hot/gourmet/seafood/bespoke choices are basically nonexistent. Fresh Market and Whole Foods really don’t do it for me either. Where I’m from in the northeast NY/NJ/CT Tristate area, you have Wegmans, Decicco’s, Uncle Giuseppe, D’agostino, Shop Rite, etc. I don’t understand why an area as highly populated as South Florida doesn’t have better options. What are your excellent regional grocery stores of choice?
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 30, 2022 2:56 AM |
In Florida, what’s the alternative? Winn-Dixie, Dollar General, Aldi, Walmart? Unless you have a desire to mingle with the poors or parsimonious seniors, it’s Publix. If Kroger were in Florida, things might be different.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 29, 2022 4:37 PM |
What happened to Piggly Wiggly?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 29, 2022 4:43 PM |
Spot on, R1. Hy-Vee would be nice, too.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 29, 2022 4:48 PM |
I don't fully agree with "not much of a selection" It doesn't have the items you're looking for, but those stores have a lot of shit. Publix has really good fried chicken and southern food items, too. But you're right that it is not the level of Wegmans... but really, NOTHING else is. Whole Foods, for example, is missing all the normal grocery brands, and until recently, you couldnt even buy pain relievers there due to wacko hippie shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 29, 2022 4:49 PM |
I miss Woodman's, which is based in southern Wisconsin and had some suburban Chicago stores.
It wasn't because of any deluxe Wegman style fine foods/bakery or the like. Woodman's is just very inexpensive, and they carry everything - they had two full aisles of cereal!
Especially with inflation, I miss being able to fill up a cart and save 50 percent off the other groceries (Jewel, Marianos) nearby.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 29, 2022 4:51 PM |
Flawduh Frauen fucking worship at the shrine of PUBLIX! If PUBLIX! had run against Trump he would have lost. Having lived on the west coast for years I was use to Gelson's so when my fat frau- in -law went into orgasms about PUBLIX! I expected something comparable. Like everything else in this swamp of a state I was underwhelmed. PUBLIX! = Understocked, overpriced and overstaffed. Their Deli is a joke. Senile cotton tops taking 30 minutes to cobble together the "legendary": PUB SUB a spongey mass of tasteless salty processed meat dreck. PUBLIX! other claim to fame is a "free" industrial scale which the livestock love because it's deliberately calibrated to take 10lbs off these heifers actual tonnage. Unfortunately it's the only show in this redneck butt crack town.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 29, 2022 4:59 PM |
We have Mollie Stone's in SF and the Bay Area. Excellent quality and selection, but astronomical prices. Every car in the lot is either a Range Rover, BMW, or Tesla. I despise Safeway but it's nearby. I do most of my food shopping at the produce market, the bakery, and the deli/butcher shops in my neighborhood.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | November 29, 2022 5:46 PM |
Do they not have Trader Joe’s in South Florida?
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 29, 2022 5:52 PM |
Gelson's of course -- for the potato salad!
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | November 29, 2022 6:43 PM |
Southern California needs a nice upscale chain like Wegman's, but we'll never get one. We have Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, Gelson's, etc--but they are nothing like Wegman's, which has huge stores and has mainstream items as well as gourmet/organic stuff. It's just too expensive to build large stores in this area now.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | November 29, 2022 6:45 PM |
We're an hour North of SF in Northern California and we only have Safeway (sigh), Lucky (downscale Safeway, but less traffic/crowds), Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck), Trader Joes (thank God!) and Grocery Outlet in my area. There's also a local chain called Oliver's which is really great but not close enough to me to frequent, unfortunately. Oh yeah, there's a FoodMaxx in the poorer neighborhood. There is a Sprouts Market in Petaluma, about 18 miles South of where I live, but the few times I've shopped there I found it pretty lackluster (but decent prices, IIRC).
God, I miss Wegmans.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | November 29, 2022 6:51 PM |
Wasn't Gooding's a thing in Central Florida?
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | November 29, 2022 6:53 PM |
R11 Agree. The market is there, but no one is grabbing it.
I miss Wegman's too. And Standard Market, which was a great gourmet grocery in the 'burbs of Chicago.
The Gelsons nearest me seems to be a sad one. I remember shopping the Manhattan Beach one and it had a relatively big section for prepared foods (including Brendad's Potatoe Salad) but the one nearest me has a teeny fresh food section.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | November 29, 2022 6:57 PM |
New Orleans has a ton of them. Rouses is a local chain but the Rouse family is a bunch of deplorables.
Dorignac's is a big standalone supermarket that's been in business for decades, partly because they hire local teens to bag groceries at every single register. It still has a great mid-mod sign outside.
There's Langenstein's, Canseco's, Breaux Mart — people like to shop at local stores. The only huge chain that's made inroads is Winn-Dixie. I don't think Kroger even is in the area.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 15 | November 29, 2022 7:04 PM |
I thought Luckys closed? We had them here in FL, which were nice. Besides Publix, there are the Wal Mart grocery store (rather ghetto-ish, but good prices on some stuff), upscale Fresh Market, Traveler Joe's, Aldi, and a posh local one that's more known for specialty/deli stuff. There is a Sprouts, but it's inconvenient, so I've never been there.
For the longest time, Publix had English muffins as a BOGO item (buy one get one free).
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | November 29, 2022 7:10 PM |
Luckys is still here (r12, NorCal) but barely hanging on. They are cheaper than Safeway, less selection and organic food. I haven't been there in ages.
I'd love for Aldi's to open here, but it's not going to happen because of the competition from Trader Joes.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | November 29, 2022 7:13 PM |
King Soopers (Kroger), Safeway, Whole foods, Sprouts, and a number of Mom and Pops. King Soopers for regular shopping mostly
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | November 29, 2022 7:17 PM |
I think the Lucky's in CA is different than the Lucky's which went bankrupt and closed about 3 months before the pandemic (which would have made them a fuckton of money).
Kroger was their big investor and they pulled their investment right before Christmas in 2019.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | November 29, 2022 7:19 PM |
[Quote]Winn-Dixie
I knew a woman who would call it "The Winn-Dixies," as if it were the name of a Southern vocal quartet.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | November 29, 2022 7:23 PM |
r16 r17 r19 The Northern Calif. Lucky stores are owned/run by SaveMart out of Modesto. The Lucky name disappeared when Albertson's bought its parent (American Stores) back in the '90s. Then when Albertsons split up, they divested the northern California stores to SaveMart, and let them use the Lucky name. For some reason, SaveMart only applied the Lucky name in the Bay Area. They should've used it in Sacramento too.
r12 Have you tried Big John's in Healdsburg? Great store. Or Molsberry's between Santa Rosa and Windsor? You didn't mention Raley's, which I think is a notch above Safeway. And Sonoma Market in Sonoma is now part of the outstanding Nugget chain. Sonoma County does not lack for great grocery shopping options.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | November 29, 2022 7:29 PM |
r21 Molsberry on Old Redwood Hwy is a mile down the road and what I consider my 'local.' However, it's a far cry from the Molsberry's in the College Area neighborhood and you can't even get things like psyllium husk there (have to go to WF) for that. I consider their meat selection not great and selection in general somewhat limited. That said, it's where I do the majority of my shopping because of its proximity to me.
I forget about Raley's - it's not close to me and even when I was closer to it (North of Coddington) I didn't consider it all that great, although probably cheaper than Safeway but comparable.
Healdsburg is too far for me (my car is iffy and not reliable, prone to not starting at inopportune times), so I've not tried Big John's. Sonoma is way too far for me to drive (26 miles to go grocery shopping? No thanks). If I could trust my car to go that far (Healdsburg), I'd go to Oliver's. I used to live in Cotati and Oliver's was my market. Top notch, in my opinion.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | November 29, 2022 7:58 PM |
We have both Aldi and Trader Joe's here, contrary to DL mythology they do not have the same shopper base (cannibalize each other). The former Lucky's location has just had Total Wine move in from their former smaller store nearby.
I get V8 juice at Walgreens being cheapest there.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | November 29, 2022 8:00 PM |
If a DLer was a true Chciagoan they’d say Treasure Island, RIP.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | November 29, 2022 8:00 PM |
r22 Can't you go to one of the two Oliver's in Santa Rosa?
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | November 29, 2022 8:11 PM |
And if you're that close to Molsberry, you're close to the Oliver's in Windsor.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | November 29, 2022 8:12 PM |
Dierberg's, the St. Louis equivalent of Wegman's. Unlike its chief competitor, Schnuck's, it does not operate any stores in the city of St. Louis, so there are no down market "ghetto" stores to ruin its reputation.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | November 29, 2022 8:21 PM |
I actually don't really go to Windsor, so until you mentioned it, I'd actually forgotten it was there. With my car being notoriously unreliable (and being unable to afford a decent used car since prices skyrocketed for used vehicles), my life is a bit small at the moment and I keep to a small radius around my home. But I did just Google maps it from my house to Oliver's and it's only 4.9 miles away from me. I'm completely grocery stocked ATM, but next time I need to do a larger and diverse grocery run, I'll hit O's in Windsor.
Thanks for the reminder!
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | November 29, 2022 8:25 PM |
We have a nice selection of stores, but I keep hearing about this store, I think, in Texas called HEB. I'd like to check that out.
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | November 29, 2022 9:04 PM |
[quote] We have both Aldi and Trader Joe's here, contrary to DL mythology they do not have the same shopper base (cannibalize each other).
We not only have them both but ours are adjacent to each other. We park in the middle and hit Aldi first, then TJs.
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | November 29, 2022 9:10 PM |
R8 BTW I don’t consider Trader Joe’s to be a regional supermarket with hot foods etc. Yes they have fun specialty items and great frozen stuff, but they aren’t a full service supermarket with all the bells and whistles and prepared foods, gourmet stuff, good produce, rare cuts and sizes of different meats etc. New York spoiled me.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | November 30, 2022 2:50 AM |
Here in Reno the local markets are Raleys, WinCo Foods, and Safeway. The Raleys vary, some are better than others. WinCo does have the cheapest prices and has a good selection of bulk bin beans/rice/nuts, etc. They don't take credit cards though-cash or debit only. The Safeway here sucks big time--bad produce and expensive prices. We also have Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Costco, and the like.
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 30, 2022 2:56 AM |
