OK, so we’ve discussed our disdain for how certain establishments have their customers line up to make purchases, small-talk made by cashiers, the virtues of carrying exact change..I thought we’d covered every topic imaginable in terms of retail.
And then I went to Raley’s today. One of the many adjustments of moving is finding a new grocery store that suits your needs. I’d grown so attached to my Pocket-area Bel Air. I knew the staff well and where every item in the store was located. I frequently had the Sesame Street song, “Who are the people in your neighborhood?” going through my head when shopping there.
A new transplant to what will hopefully never become the City of Arden-Arcade, most of the shopping is now done at the Town & Country Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and the Country Club Plaza farmers’ market. Sometimes you need a “normal” grocery store, and I’m about to call our Employee Assistance Program to help me through this.
The Bel Air at Arden & Eastern is friendly, but not as updated and well-stocked as I prefer, plus everyday seems like “Senior Citizens Day” (Don’t get me wrong; I have profound respect for the elderly. What their eyes have seen in their lifetime blows my mind. Going to a senior-heavy store, however, just makes navigating the parking lot and aisles a little more precarious. I do enjoy helping them get items off the top shelves — it makes me feel helpful, and since I’ve never had grandparents, I always think that one of them will want to adopt me.)
Anyway, today I went to the Raley’s at Marconi and Watt.
It is one of the largest grocery stores I’ve ever seen, but darn it if I can’t find what I need in that place. I’m not alone, since each shopping trip requires at least a dozen “excuse me” requests to other customers who stand at the end of aisles hoping to find what he or she needs.
What’s made this even worse is that the store has recently been rearranged completely.
What grocery store has the bread aisle on an interior row on the opposite side of the store from the bakery? There are tortillas in the produce section, ones that can’t be found in the regular end-cap tortilla display. These are special, though, they’re called Abuelita’s, and they’re locally made (not sure if by someone’s grandma as the name would lead us to believe.)
They have a huge selection of holiday items, but they don’t carry some really basic items like the standard Baker’s unsweetened chocolate squares that every grocery store has. There is an entire row of chips, but the only size bag of Rold Gold Tiny Twists would be enough to feed Ron Artest AND his dog for the next decade.
The only store that’s remotely close to where we are now that fits both the well-stocked and updated requirements is the Raley’s at Walnut and Fair Oaks.
Has anyone else had issues finding a home in your area grocery stores?
The Sac Rag 
On the rare occasion that I go to a grocery store in Sacramento (or anywhere with plenty o’ land to build) I am always blown away by the new Super SuperMarkets. I get dizzy looking at the football field sized structure. And I don’t get it, it takes longer to do your shopping and, as far as groceries, they have the same selection of products as any small grocery store (like Calfoods or the tiny Safeways we have here). It’s strange that the huge size of the store does not tranlate to a larger selection of products, you have to still supplement with a trip to whole foods or the co-op, well, if you cook the things I do. If you don’t need amaranth and raw agave syrup then you are probably fine but it’s still quite a trek gathering the items on your list.
LikeLike
Grrrrr…
You opened a can of worms RG. Both of my go-to shopping establishments (Folsom and Rancho Cordova Safeway’s) have been under recent renovations. Neither have a full selection of normal wares in stock, the produce is limited and disgusting, and everything is moved around to random places. Add to that, darker than usual atmosphere, torn up walls and ceiling, and what seems to be an extremely limited labor force, you feel like you have fallen into a sci-fi horror novel in which as you walked into the store, you walked through a secret portal to some post-nuclear attack grocers.
I can be fair. Some stores need a new face once in a while as times change (Fact: The Rancho Cordova Raley’s has needed one for about 10 years, it has a pungent funk smell.), but not these two. Both less than 10 years old, and with the Folsom store already renovated once in this time, the only reason for the remodel is because, to quote a cashier, “Soon Safeway won’t be your grocery store, it’ll be your lifestyle”. Yeah…um…sorry, but Starbucks beat you to that whole deal, so unless the lifestyle it’s going to become is the life of a pissed off shopper that can’t find a single ten stem bunch of tulips that were advertised in your very circular YESTERDAY –NEWS FLASH BIG S: your not heading in the right direction.
That day, the fateful tulip day, I checked out (sans tulips) and the checker looked me in the eye and said… “Find everything alright?” I haven’t been to either location since.
PS: A quick thank you note to my new BFF store Winco. I may be a Stepford shopper for walking in your doors, but I can always count on sh*t being in the same place.
LikeLike
Would you prefer shopping at a grocery store filled with screaming brats?
LikeLike
Not really, but sometimes there is no choice in that matter — I realize that parents can’t control when their kids will get hungry, tired, or otherwise cranky, and a lot of times that’s at the grocery store. That’s when a deep breath and a polite smile help, since you know that they’d rather be just about any place other than the store with their upset child at that point. (Genuine “brats” are an entirely different story = no sympathy going on there.)
CSI: I’m sorry you too are feeling some frustration with not being able to find items! Is it true that Winco has seemingly endless bins of bulk items with just about any item imaginable?
LikeLike
It is in fact true. Winco has almost all commonly stocked cabinet spices, candy, baking goods, nuts, mixes (pancake,muffin,cornbread), protein powder, rice (white, brown, pilaf and like 2 other kinds), dog and cat treats, cookies, chips, dried fruit. Basically – it’s what Christopher Columbus was searching for when he found the Americas. Picture that candy store in old sac, filled normal kitchen goods. My most recent purchase was melting chocolate at $1.50 p/p bulk, on the shelf…$2.88 for 12oz. What a steal. They also have fresh ground almond butter, peanut butter and clover honey (MAKE SURE: mind the signs and leave lids down on honey boxes so bees dont escape).
LikeLike
Bees! Oooh scary! Do they sell epi-pens in bulk too, right next to the fresh clover honey?
LikeLike
Okay, once again I’m a weirdo. I love when the grocery store gets rearranged because it makes a little variety in my regular errands. Wow. That is so incredibly pathetic, now that I see it written down!
LikeLike
Yep RG, in the baking section by the nuts, Baker’s unsweetened chocolate squares. Winco is my hero. Oh Oh Oh…and try there Pizzagna! Its lasagna…but made with pizza toppings instead of lasagna filling. Okay…doesnt sound that different on paper, but it is. I know you need to carb up sometimes…this would be a good way!! They make it fresh daily in the pizzaria.
LikeLike
my wife and i shop at the taylors market up the street. what i find is you trade quantity for quality. the reasons you can’t find “everything” at a smaller market-style store are these places actually do research on the products they sell, they know where they are, and they actually give a damn…imagine that! another great thing is finding local coffee roasters sell their coffee here too, and no friggin’ starbucks kiosk to walk past….or a bank for that matter. the big chains don’t care about you, what you buy, or the quality of the products they sell. if theye did you’d never find the smuckers peanut butter/jelly in one jar nasty thing. sometimes you luck out and the store is up the street and sometimes you have to plan it out a little more. just try to spend your money where it counts and helps a family-owned business out.
LikeLike
that’s cool that you shop at Taylor’s, it’s like you’re part of an elite group, like a groupist or something, and everybody who shops at dumbass stores like Safeway that have profit margins and crap like that are not part of that group. as someone who hates talking to unwashed low-wage earners i can totally jive with dat if you know what i’m sayin.
LikeLike
TP, sometimes you’ve gotta buy..well..TP and other items that you can’t find at specialty stores. Sorry, but I don’t need my TP to be made of organic, unbleached rainforest-friendly fibers.
I love places like Taylors and Sellands, but they don’t serve every purpose to me.
There’s a market (pun intended) for places like Raley’s or Bel Air, and it honestly does not get more “locally owned” than the Raley’s family of stores.
Just because some of us don’t shop exclusively at niche retailers doesn’t mean our carts are full of Cheez-Whiz and Goober & Grape.
LikeLike
Notice how the pendulum has completely swung to the other side? A couple weeks ago, we were accused of being the “too cool for school” types who had tattoes and piercings before they were hip, etc., and now the assertion is that we’re a bunch of hicks gorging ourselves on Chikn-in-a-Biskit & Kool Aid.
LikeLike
I meant “tattoos” not “tattoes” (which are the small tattoos on your toes that spell out five-letter words that people can read when you’re wearing sandals.)
LikeLike
I agree with runnergirl but there’s also the issue of cost for these ‘regular’ items. Cortis is right on my way home and I wish I could stop in to pick up a few things on my way home due to the convenience. Cortis is great for specialty items and they do carry TP and the standard items as well but the prices are completely jacked up. I refuse to pay $3.99 for a two-liter bottle of 7-up when it’s .99 at Safeway. I’m not even that frugal of a shopper but this makes me feel like I’m being ripped off if I shop there.
LikeLike
…but if you want an out of this world sandwich you’re going to go to Corti’s deli and not Safeway. If only we lived in a country that was like, free and junk…
LikeLike
Absolutely. I’d never diss the sandwiches. Top notch all the way.
LikeLike
When I used to commute to work, and sometimes even before that, when I had a car and often felt more like I had loads of time to burn outside of work, I would often go to Winco. I usually went to the one in Elk Grove, then when I worked in Folsom; the one in Folsom, but I’d also go to the one in Roseville and the one in Citrus Heights on occasion.
If you have the time to kill once in a great while, and a car that can do it, I reccomend bulking up on stuff like produce, cereal, meats, dry goods, etc. and picking up a few good deals on guilty pleasure impulse items at a “local” Winco.
Yes, Winco has a lot about it that’s crappy. I also wonder if they’re one of those places that makes all their workers part owners so that they can continue treating them like peons and never have to worry about if they’ll unionize.
However, their produce is almost always cheaper than, and quite often a lot better than what I’d see at the local Safeway. It’s not as fantastic as the co-op, but the selection is actually pretty decent, and it usually doesn’t look like it was rolled to the store from as far away as possible. Sure, it’s not the co-op, but really, how many of us can afford to buy everyday produce from there all the time? Not me.
The pre-packaged meats are a really good deal, but I’ve been advised to steer clear of their fresh butchery. I don’t really know the story behind that, but I just figured I’d avoid risking it.
It’s like shopping at CostCo, really, but the produce is a bit fresher, a little more like a real grocery than an industrial warehouse with eight crates high of ears of corn that might have god knows how many variants of the genus “rodentia” camping in them, and the overall store in general just has less of a feel like you’re being strongarmed into buying more than you actually need, but the prices are comparable, without HAVING to buy bulk.
Of course, part of the reason they can afford the low prices is that they’re always on the perimeters of metro areas. They’re not really close to town. I’ll probably never see the inside of one for a really long time now that I’m on a bike. But I still think they’re a good deal, if you want to make a trek on a saturday sometime.
Safeway is pretty much where I do half my shopping, and the other Half at Trader Joe’s. I don’t trust Trader Joe’s meats or produce, but everything else is fantastic, though some of their snacky-type items are good and cheap, but never seem to be quite what I want. Sure, that’s just a matter of personal taste, I guess, but I rarely have that dilemma at the Co-op.
Safeway does not have crumpets. That’s pretty lame, if you ask me. I know this is not the UK, but come on, are they really that weird for the US? I would wager that I could find items that are similarly vaguely non-common for the US of A, or even more obscure, that can be found at every Safeway. Damn me if I can think of one right now.
I still shop there for hooch and beer, but Safeway’s prices on liquor are a bit high, and their beer selection sucks. The only thing that keeps me coming back is that I consume a moderate and steady amount of beer, so I often go for cheap over fancy, but I still have my standards, and they’re the only local chain that pretty consistently carrys PBR at a decent price.
They don’t carry Old Milwuakee (with the exception of the non-alcoholic variety), so if I want it, I have to go to Raley’s, and there are none of those in biking distance from midtown. I like Old Milwuakee because it, like Pabst, is inexpensive, and though not all that great, it’s never so bad that I wouldn’t gladly drink it.
But it’d be nice to have some variety. Safeway’s cheap beers are Pabst, Cedar Mountain (which tastes like Pabst), Miller, Budweiser, and then the variety that starts with Keystone, Natural Ice and goes from kinda gross down to the sort that tastes like somebody else already tried to drink it once without success, and all of which will guarantee you a hangover before an hour has gone by, regardless of how much of it you drank.
There are other palatable inexpensive beers. Hamms? Old Milwuakee?
And then there’s there high-end and imports. Well, this response is long enough already. Finding a place that really cares about keeping a good selection of beers could warrant a commission with numerous volumes of reports.
Still…there are chain markets that do better than Safeway.
I can’t think of any specifics, but there’s been more than one occasion on which I’ve been in safeway, picked up an item, and went looking for something that is commonly accompanied with it, and not only is it not in the same aisle (which is understandable, as you don’t really put hot dogs and hot dog buns on the same aisle, for example), but they were generally impossible to find, and were sometimes in some tiny little endcap area or special kiosk, which would lead one to believe that they’re not considered normal items, and that the store is just sorta entertaining some fancy. I know I shouldn’t make that kind of statement without being able to cite a specific example, but well…trust me, its happened.
LikeLike
Wow, Chris! Thank you for providing me with some amusement while I sit in this benefits open enrollment meeting! I am hoping that you and sac-eats can turn your grocery store missive into one of those spoken word type songs with banjo and washboard in the background.
LikeLike