Byerly's
OK, so after posting about the mediocrity of the big grocery store chains a couple posts ago, I finally checked out one of the higher end stores in Minneapolis: Byerly's. It has all the things I said the big stores don't: Nice aesthetics, wider aisles, a good meat department, cashiers who help you bag your stuff, and a deli section where they slice the meat as you order it.
It also has a restaurant. Not just one a little cafe area where you can order soup and sandwiches, but an actual walled-off from the store, please-wait-for-the-hostess-to-seat-you restaurant. Whoa.
Prices were generally, um, worse than in the bigger stores. Except for soda. 12-packs of Coke products were 3 for $9. To my mind, this is a good deal. However, this may be due to a separate theory we have about soda prices. For some reason, soda is cheap as hell in and around where my family lives outside Philadelphia, PA, and was never that cheap in Rhode Island. So we think it might be a regional thing, so maybe soda is just cheap in Minneapolis like it is in PA. Fascinating stuff, I know.
Anyway, then when I went to check out, not only did they bag my stuff, but after I paid and went to get my bagged stuff from the bag boy, my soda wasn't there. I actually had to ask him where it was: "I sent it out already," he said, "that seemed like a lot to carry." He had already sent it rolling down a little track, along which he also sent my other groceries in a big rubber tub. He then gave me two license-plate-sized pieces of plastic with numbers on them and explained that I could pick my stuff in my car. I dutifully went out to my car and pulled around to the pick-up area. There was one car in front of me, which opened its trunk to let a nice Byerly's employee load groceries from off the tub into the trunk. Thank goodness for this warning. I quickly scrambled out of my car and tidied up our mess of a car trunk. Then I pulled up, handed the employee (a woman, which made me really feel guilty about this whole system) my number plates, and she loaded my groceries into my car. I debated about tipping her but then decided against it, since I would have been happy to carry (or rather roll) my own groceries to the car (and I hadn't seen the car in front of me tip).
So the moral of this story is that while the big chain stores in Minneapolis are not as nice as we're used to, the higher-end stores (at least Byerly's) is nicer than we're used to. We'll be shopping there on a regular basis for cold cuts (it's near my work) but will try to be good and get better prices on the rest of our groceries.
However, I will feel guilty as hell about that Byerly's employee standing out at that car-loading port come Feburary. I'll probably just skip the soda then.
City Pages Review of Byerly's
And Another
It also has a restaurant. Not just one a little cafe area where you can order soup and sandwiches, but an actual walled-off from the store, please-wait-for-the-hostess-to-seat-you restaurant. Whoa.
Prices were generally, um, worse than in the bigger stores. Except for soda. 12-packs of Coke products were 3 for $9. To my mind, this is a good deal. However, this may be due to a separate theory we have about soda prices. For some reason, soda is cheap as hell in and around where my family lives outside Philadelphia, PA, and was never that cheap in Rhode Island. So we think it might be a regional thing, so maybe soda is just cheap in Minneapolis like it is in PA. Fascinating stuff, I know.
Anyway, then when I went to check out, not only did they bag my stuff, but after I paid and went to get my bagged stuff from the bag boy, my soda wasn't there. I actually had to ask him where it was: "I sent it out already," he said, "that seemed like a lot to carry." He had already sent it rolling down a little track, along which he also sent my other groceries in a big rubber tub. He then gave me two license-plate-sized pieces of plastic with numbers on them and explained that I could pick my stuff in my car. I dutifully went out to my car and pulled around to the pick-up area. There was one car in front of me, which opened its trunk to let a nice Byerly's employee load groceries from off the tub into the trunk. Thank goodness for this warning. I quickly scrambled out of my car and tidied up our mess of a car trunk. Then I pulled up, handed the employee (a woman, which made me really feel guilty about this whole system) my number plates, and she loaded my groceries into my car. I debated about tipping her but then decided against it, since I would have been happy to carry (or rather roll) my own groceries to the car (and I hadn't seen the car in front of me tip).
So the moral of this story is that while the big chain stores in Minneapolis are not as nice as we're used to, the higher-end stores (at least Byerly's) is nicer than we're used to. We'll be shopping there on a regular basis for cold cuts (it's near my work) but will try to be good and get better prices on the rest of our groceries.
However, I will feel guilty as hell about that Byerly's employee standing out at that car-loading port come Feburary. I'll probably just skip the soda then.
City Pages Review of Byerly's
And Another
posted by James at 8:26 PM
1 Comments:
JD and B,
I told you Byerly's rocks! I had completely forgotten about the whole roller-belt-load-your-groceries thing. That was really cool when I was a kid - big arguments with the siblings over who carries the big plastic numbers. You'll love it in January.
Also, pretty good prepared foods. I guess when I was living in MN, I didn't buy a lot of groceries, so I didn't notice the higher prices.
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