Just Another Grocery Store

Shop Rite is a mile from my house. And it's fine. Quite nice actually. Clean facility, fresh enough produce. Pleasant staff.

And it was busy in the beginning. Overtly so. Now, I walk in, and it's the same number of people I'd see any other place, which I suppose is a good sign for a new place. But, all those sale prices are not sustainable, nor is the stock on the shelves, as the specialty items seem to quickly sell out.

They have row after row of beautiful, freshly chopped vegetables, which is also convenient. And I found chopped butternut squash. But, the butternut squash, which runs around $1.20-1.50 lb unchopped, just wasn't worth $4.39 lb to me to have someone else do the chopping for me.

Now, the prices on the organic mushrooms were damn impressive. But, how long can this last? How close are these organic produce prices related to sustainable reality and how close are they related to the fabled $4.99 per pound Lobster Tails and Beef Tenderloin of Shop Rite's opening weekend?

I will give Shop Rite this - the olive trays are GORGEOUS. But, I'm worried about turnover and freshness with such a large variety. And I'm hesitant at a grocery store to pick my way through a taste here and a taste there to find what I like to bring home. I guess they'll do just fine, and beautifully so, but I'd really rather go see Gustav and know the value of what I'm getting. He'll let me taste before I start spending all my money, too.

Now, here is a piece I don't quite know how I feel about it: Shop Rite is making a great effort to catering to we Israelite folk, with a Kosher meat only machine in the deli department, a huge selection of refridgerated, frozen kosher goods and a VERY large Kosher dry goods section including store brand kosher canned goods with the prices to match store brand!! What this particular Shop Rite doesn't seem to understand is that NO ONE wants to eat Pesachtik candy in November. No one in the right mind EVER really wants to eat Pesachtik candy - we just do it when we're desperate and can't find any macaroons.

Now here's the thing: they ran out of bagels on a Monday morning. When asked, I was told that more needed to be ordered. Which leads me to ask - how much is being baked on site, and how much is being par baked or frozen and then shipped in? Someone please research this and tell me if Artisan Bread is actually occurring. Update from a Facebook Reader who worked at Shop Rite HQ: Bagels DO arrive to the stores par baked and frozen and are finished on site.

So, what's my current verdict on Shop Rite? It's convenient to my house, but so is the Nisky Coop. The prices are already similar/competitive to the other grocery stores in the area, but I'm interested to see where they will land once the 'we've just opened' sales go down. They are carrying local dairy items, and other local specialty items, but so is the Nisky Coop, and in this particular case, the prices are nearly equivalent.

Shop Rite is also a co-op/employee owned business. But they built a store in the home town of the Golub Family and Golub Headquarters, which is somewhere between damn gutsy and fairly dick. But, in that laissez fair, free market way of things, I am finding that Shop Rite's presence is causing Price Chopper to step up their own game, and THAT I love.

So, here's to the free/local market wars. Long may they wage. And may the locally owned guys always come out on top.