Gmart

Love the amazing selection of spices and ethnic spice blends (worth the extra star) but everything else leaves a lot to be improved upon. Some of the produce is good and the meat looks fresh but the store itself is really not sparkly clean like I want a grocery store to be.

Was excited when I heard this place opened, considering Santoni’s was always dirty and not worth a trip across town…
It’s still not worth a trip across town — and it’s still dirty. The selection of Asian groceries was almost nonexistent, and the produce looked tired and old. Meats weren’t particularly nice, either — especially when you compared them to what you would find at H Mart.
My advice? For Asian groceries (including produce and meats) stick to H Mart in Catonsville.

I was thrilled when I learned that a new ethnic grocery store was replacing the old, tired Santoni’s market. I didn’t expect something along the lines of Hanahreum or Lotte market, but something more like LA mart which offers more of a diverse selection and caters to the latino community.
Gmart is more like LA mart in that regard, there are Asian products along with a large latino section. Well the latino section seemed pretty standard with all the mercados that you’ll find within a few blocks of this store, but the Asian selection is really lacking. One thing that is really strange, is the layout. It’s EXACTLY like the former Santoni’s (without all of the IGA food branding), so much as the end caps are filled with the same hot pockets by the deli area. What’s even stranger, is the fact that all ethnic foods are mixed in with general groceries, which on paper seems like it would be convenient but it becomes a little frustrating. Yes, there is half-​an Asian aisle with all the standards, but you’ll soon find those standards are sprinkled throughout the general aisles as well. There is a snack aisle that starts with Pocky and ends with latin enfamil, I don’t quite understand.
The seafood section, I think, will cause the biggest culture shock to the Santoni’s regulars, out in the open are heads of fish on ice. The fish looked decent, but I didn’t look too hard. The bakery area now has a desayunos latin breakfast area, so you can order all the standards during the AM hours.
There was an odd, untended hot bar in the middle of the floor in front of the bakery that has some seriously dry, crusted, southern style food (taters, greens, some sort of ribs) on it. No signs, no labels, explaining what the items were or containers to put them on. The lamps look like they’ve been on a long time as the food was petrified inside of them. Groddy.
The produce was priced competitively, but I can’t say that it looked incredible.
Overall impression, the store has been open for four days now but the floors are still incredible filthy, scuffed. The same signs from the Santoni’s days are still in use, even the outside placards. I really hope these are just growing pains. but to be perfectly fair, HAHA food market is literally 5 minutes away from Gmart and it has far more incentive to go there instead of trying to navigate the aisles of Gmart.
One more thing, I can forgive the skimpy Asian selection, but why on earth would you not stock Kimchi? Grrhm.