Supermarkets

search/destroy: ZOOPAH markets

Oh, it's totally ghetto. I love my local Gristede's, though, especially the fortresslike Wall of Soda and the deli counter that I want nothing to do with.

www.ctownsupermarkets.com - check out the photos.

Like the Middle Eastern Bakery on Foster Ave.? (I love that place.)

My other local supermarket is a Lidl, which is very cheap but full of crap, even by my very low standards.

Yeah, it's great. They have this incredible Turkish black tea for about $2.50/pound mmmmmmmmmm. Though I wish they would carry more kinds of olives and also CDs, like the Pita Inn Market in Skokie. The Persian place on Clark and Berwyn is not as user-friendly (to me) by comparison; it seems to cater to, um, actual Persian people. (Hence the shelves and shelves of videos, tapes, CDs, and DVDs with only Farsi written on them. I really need someone to recommend me some Iranian popular music.)

My favourite Italian supermarket on Farringdon Road has shut for a year, leaving me bereft and dependent on the one three doors down which is slightly more expensive. I go there for smoked pancetta and nice mozzarella.

British supermarkets have a lot to live up to. I was brought up six blocks from a really posh Byerly's (which I had no idea had launched and tanked as a chain in Chicago) with 24-hour hot and cold running EVERYTHING.

Is it vegan? If so, a friend of mine would be very happy.

Yeah, I've never been to that place, because I do get the impression it's more for the actual Persians. Nor have I been to the Pita Inn market -- only the restaurant. But I go there for lunch with some regularity, since I work in Evanston.

Oh, and what's Kabul bread?

Persian ice cream doesn't really even bear a resemblance to regular ice cream. It's basically just water and starch and these little vermicelli things and sugar and whatever flavor you choose. My favorite adds rosewater but I forget what it's called.

Pita Inn is the greatest place on earth and I will brook no dissent. Also they are one of two places I know that have Mister Pibb (as opposed to Dr. Pepper) on tap. Mmmmmmmmmister Pibb.

My favortie market is the trippy one in Wilimasburg where you walk through the giant slabs of big plastic and your inside a refrigerated meat locker with raw meat and perishable just siting out on the shelves. The employees are wearing face masks.

I hate the NYC tendency of supermarkets to just order things at whim. One day you go in and find all this stuff you need, then next week you'll see no hide nor hair of it. It's like, what the hell happened to the Tidy Cat, damnit?

(How to find other New Orleanians on ILX: check the food threads.)

The Whole Foods on Magazine kicks ass, except for their strange lack of trash bags (which may have been a temporary thing). The other Whole Foods is like half a grocery store crammed into half a bathroom. The carts barely fit through the aisles.

But I don't live particularly near either of them, so I end up sticking to Sav-a-Center, Winn-Dixie, etc. I dig grocery stores. I cook so often, it's like a painter shopping for paints, with weird interesting colors showing up erratically and seasonally.

http://www.heb.com/images/head_logo_b.gif

Another good thing about living here:

http://www.wildoats.com/content/sun_har_storefront.jpg

A bad thing about living here is that there is no:

http://www.kroger.com/images/nav_left/logo_kroger_ui.gif

(I miss that store.)

But I grew up in the land of Price Chopper and I will accept nothing less... my mum and I used to fight over Price Chopper vs. Grand Union cause Grand Union was posh and Ghetto Chopper was not, but then Grand Onion was bought out by Ghetto Chopper, har har har!

C-Town? Crud-Town more like. Food Emporium all the way!

I've never been to Makro, but some friends have told me about it, and now it's reaching mythical-city-of-gold-type proportions. They have EVERYTHING, from cheap CDs to printer paper to vibrators to industrial sized vats of salad creme. Apparently. I want membership to Makro like c-listers want membership to Groucho's.

Anyway - I never go to ASDA these days because it is full of scrotes and I hate those creepy gnomes in green jackets they have who pop out from behind the door and throw a basket at you

I like Tesco. Sainsburys is alright but the staff are miserable cunts and the Safeway in the town centre - even though they've just had a massive and expensive refit - still never has anything on the shelves. Also I don't feel welcome in there since I changed the word "less" to "fewer" on one of their promotional posters with a permanent marker

Senior year in Binghamton I lived down the road from a 24-hour Price Chopper. That was cool; I'm from the city that supposedly never sleeps, but hardly anything stays open 24 hours here. But prior to that apartment I lived near this real low-rent supermarket called Giant where all the food was always expired and crackheads hung out in the parking lot hassling people for change. Flies buzzing around everything. Yuck. But yes, fond memories of 3am beer runs at Price Chopper.

Chitlins to go!

Plus, it's not very veggie friendly.

it sells everything. and is open 24 hours. and is the nighttime hangout of local kids since it is the only thing other than denny's that is open all night. play in the toy section, check out the guns and ammo, buy yourself a fish, start a food fight in the bulk foods section...

wandering around budgens or sainsburys just isn't the same...

We should speak in our secret code, then! Whole Foods is where I sometimes go to make groceries. I hate when I'm pushing the cart out and it gets stuck on the banquette. And the one on Esplanade, it's always awkward crossing the street because of the strange angle of the neutral ground.

You get Tchopitoulas down yet? :) I'm in Gentilly, which unfortunately has no wacky pronunciation, but I'm right near Elysian, so there we go. And I used to live on Hayne, which every single person in the city ever pronounces with an s, "Haynes." There are even stores there called "Haynes such-and-such," spelling it with the s. It baffles me.

chaos in the produce aisles, i love it.

Apparently, this MetFoods is the one where Christopher Wallace worked. Also, according to a web site I just looked at, he planned at some point to open his own chain of grocery stores named "Big Poppa's."

Sure, hstencil. I've always wanted to visit Georgia and I hear there are plenty of Krogers there. Why don't we go? ;)

Seriously, though. H-E-B has driven out all the major national chains from this area. We used to have Krogers; now they're gone. We used to have Albertson's; now they're gone as well. It's come down to the point where if you wanted to get any regular grocery shopping done without going to H-E-B, you'd have to go to the Super Targets or Super Wal-Marts here.

When I was in London, I grew very fond of Sainsbury's. I know that's awful of me to say, but it was the closest supermarket to where I was and I could easily walk to one, so I grew very attached to it. I liked the Tesco's, too -- it's just that one was a long way off. Are all British supermarkets dimly lit, though? I don't remember them being brightly lit. Over here, all of our supermarkets are very brightly lit.

By the way, non-US readers, this is the very supermarket chain referenced by Jonathan Richman in "Roadrunner." True!

Because he's from Cincy?

my younger sister lived near the one mentioned in the song (by rte. 128) and did her shopping there until moving to sommerville last fall. she said they had a "singles night" on wednesdays to drum up business during the mid-week lull.

there was a shaws warehouse in the town i grew up, set waaaaaaaaay at the end of an access road from a seldom used secondary street. it was a place for high school kids to get their kicks as there were woods providing easy escape and you could see any cars coming for a mile before they could get to you.

good times, good times...

Ally's comment re: NYC store stocking is so OTM it's not even funny. There have been times when I've gone into my 24-hour Rite-Aid/CVS/whatever (I go there all the time and I don't even know what it is) like every night for weeks looking for my Quilted Northern, and it's never there despite the massive overstocks of like Fruity Pebbles and chocolate Easter bunnies and sh*t. Then one day I come home early and go to the boutique pharmacy (Love) or Food Emporium or something and immediately find my high-end toilet paper. The next day, magically, the huge shipment of Quilted Northern arrives at the other store.

Supermarkets I have visited:

A&P, Carrefour, Marks and Spencer, Metro, Safeway, Tesco, Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Booths, Costco, Iceland, Sainsbury's, Asda, Food Lion, Hannaford, Food 4 Less, Ralphs, Piggly Wiggly, Stop and Shop, Pavilions, Jon's Vons, Kmart, Albertsons, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Andronicos, Gelsons, Publix, Shoprite, Wegmans, Farmer Jack, Great American, Star Market

Does anyone know what "RTC" might mean on a shelf-edge price label?

This was printed on some totally bargain-tastic reduced price alcohol items when I was shopping in Tesco this evening.

My guess is that it means "Return To C...." and that it's stock that's about to be sent back and has been last-ditch reduced beforehand. Anyone know?

I'm just curious and thought there might be some knowledgeable supermarket/retail type bods on here...

...Clear?

"Reduced To Clear", I think.

radiotherapy centre

reduced after being pumped full of chemo

cozen and i are experts

Ach, I feel stupid now. Reduced To Clear, of course. Thanks.

I'm a trained retail professional. I feel horribly ashamed for not knowing that instantly.

In fairness, I've never seen it abbreviated to RTC anywhere. What next? BOGOF?

i was in waitrose yesterday at the deli counter and just as i was getting served the deli woman shouted over to her workmate to reduce the hot chicken to 10p (!) because they aren't allowed to keep them in the oven thing past 4pm (it was about five to) - cue lots of posh waitrose shoppers flocking rounf the chicken warmer thing trying not to look like scroungers. i get one anyway since i happened to be at the front.

my other recent waitrose story is that i got some shaving cream at a v reduced price after i asked the customer services woman to check (i thought i had been overcharged). it turned out it was on the wrong shelf but that she would give it to me for the (incorrect) display price. the woman then told me that she "would make the ambient replenisher aware of the mistake". ambient replenisher! that's what they call shelf stackers these days! what a world!

Steve Hillage was actually doing a bit of moonlighting.

>ambient replenisher!

My dear old Dad used to own a business selling refrigeration and related stuff to supermarkets etc and the range included Ambient Cabinets ie. a thing that looks like a fridge, fits in seamlessly next to a fridge, but has no refrigeration unit (hence "ambient"). This was back in the early 90s, and as I was listening to a lot of The Orb and Eno at the time the irony was not lost on me, I can tell you.

means the item is real as fuck obv

Fridge technicians must have winced every time they heard the phrase 'chilled ambient'.