Aldi

That last review I wrote kills me. LOL. I had forgotten about that cost comparison that I did years ago. I shopped at this Aldi today but I hadn’t in some time due to my living closer to a different grocery store. I am now freshly reminded of what I said before, more groceries for less money.
A HUGH improvement to this store is that the old cold cuts & cheese case in the back left corner is now full of meat, and much more meat than they carried before. The cheeses have been moved to the old meat cooler and the cold cuts are now refrigerated behind the cooler doors to the left, which used to be freezers. They still have freezer food moving left, just that one section is now a refrigerater.
Another note, the first aisle when you walk in offers a vast selection of nuts, dried fruit, and trail mixes. Well worth the trip up Elmwood, I’ll have to get back in the habit of shopping here.

Much smaller store than «my» Aldi. Happened to be on this side of town, so I ran in to get a few things. what a disappointment! Dairy and produce were severely understocked. Bananas were fine, though. One star
checker had an interesting tat. when I complimented her on it, she adjusted her blouse to show me two big red bows just below her collar bones. Sweet! Extra star.

I like Aldi as a brand. Their basic pantry ingredients are pretty good and pretty cheap. I buy what I can at Aldi and then will stop at another grocery store for supplementary items. Aldi is always trying new products so there is decent chance I can find odds and ends or stock up for the times I’ll need them in the future. I like their non-​grocery item features. I’ve picked up everything from a salad spinner to memory foam pillows at Aldi.
This particular location is always well stocked and the cashiers are relatively nice. The parking lot can be slightly wonky (especially when Popeye’s first opened– holy bob!) so be wary when it’s busy. It’s on the Elmwood 20 bus route and has a covered stop for those without cars. There are a bunch of symbiotic businesses in the surrounding plazas such as Tops, First Niagara Bank, a liquor store, Home Depot, Target, etc, so I genuinely prefer this location.

This is an excellent store, provided you know what to buy and what to avoid.
But before we get to the nitty gritty, let’s look at the actual store itself. It’s small. That means you can run in, shop, and leave without having to navigate a store the size of a small mall.
Also, it’s owned by the same family who own Trader Joe’s. Personally, as much as I love some of the dark chocolate at Trader Joe’s, I am pretty unimpressed with most of their wares.
Aldi has a very flexible business model, though they adhere to one core value: provide the best food for the lowest price. Do they always achieve that? No. However, there are certain things they do remarkably well.
Another way they impress me is with their weekly specials. Again, some are not so special, but others are amazing. Spanish olive oil, home products, like great memory foam pillows for ten dollars, holiday items, plants, etc.
Here’s my list of their best bets, all at prices that are astonishingly low:
Extra virgin olive oil
Organic pasta sauces with basil
Dubliner cheddar
Pestos
Organic low sodium chicken broth
Fancy thin frozen string beans
Imported cheeses
Organic baby carrots
Organic cherry tomatoes
Sweet onions
Organic lettuces
Lifeway kefir
Dijon and coarse mustards
All sorts of nuts
Almond butter
Household cleaning products and tissues
Gluten free crackers that are insanely delicious
Real maple syrup
Avocados
All sorts of other seasonal vegetables and fruits
Walnuts
Canned beans
Organic canned tomatoes
That gives you some idea.
You will save a ton of money, not to mention time.

Aldi is a wonderful store to shop at. The products are prices are great. However, one particular cashier needs to refresh his customer service skills; greet customers and refrain from being rude. Besides that, I have recommended Aldi to others.

Aldi’s and I have an on-​and-​off relationship. Sometimes I get frustrated with her and don’t come back for a while, but then end up revisiting and am flabbergasted with how many groceries I can get away with for under $ 30 and I’m back on the train!
See, I come here thinking I’m saving lots of money. Oftentimes, I am saving tons of money, but the elation is often overcome with disappointment that those $ 1.99 off-​season raspberries I bought yesterday are now spoiled. Oops!
Despite that, their is some decent produce here: avocados, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers. even tomatoes. I can make a mean veggie stew out of all these things that will last for a few days and will be nice and healthy. I also like the Beaumont Fairly Traded coffee that sells for like $ 4.99/bag.
One of my favorite products is the Deutsch pumpernickel/​rye bread because it’s already dry and has an expiration date of 1 year from now. No preservatives! Bread that expires a year from now but has no preservatives? How do they do it? Magic!
Their flower bouquets are nice as well; fairly traded and priced at $ 3.99−4.99.

I used to be a bigger fan, but recently I’ve started to feel like the prices here are really not that great – and the selection is pretty limited, so that wouldn’t me enough to draw me back. We were so disappointed with the produce selection and prices that we left without many of the items on our list and headed to another store in the neighborhood to complete our shopping.

Alright, alright, I know «you shop at Aldi» was an insult when I was in fifth grade but I love this place. If you’re willing to check labels you can get some healthy staples here very cheap, including whole wheat pasta, brown rice, wheat bread, 100% juice, healthy cereals, preservative-​free frozen and canned vegetables, whole grain msg free chips, msg-​free carton soups, salt & preservative free butter, hummus (excellent — try the garlic), vegetarian pasta sauce, preservative free frozen shrimp & fish, gourmet salsa blends, Neufchâtel cheese (a lower fat alternative to cream cheese), etc. Their Fit & Active line of products are largely very good, but I avoid most of the «snack» items, which are loaded with artificial ingredients.
Of course they sell lots of unhealthy crap, but so do regular grocery stores. Once you try out a few things you learn quickly which generic brands make the best stuff — a lot of it is comparable to much more expensive name brands (and quite often said name brand companies make the generic as well) — and they also regularly have name brand stuff at very low prices. Of course they don’t have the niche products of Lexington Co-​op or the selection of a Wegmans but the variety of the stuff they sell, all at very reasonable prices, is amazing for such a small space. You can find a lot of international foods here; in the past I’ve purchased spatzel, bamboo shoots, Irish hard cheese, Thai noodles, corn tortillas and Bavarian-​style sauerkraut. Their prices on basics like sandwich meat & cheese, bagels, milk, eggs, waffles, oatmeal and condiments can’t be beat and the quality is just as good as a comparable store or name brand.
They lack a deli and their «fresh» meat and prepared foods freezer selections are hit or miss. I’m also not a fan of their produce — zucchini and some other products are decent, but a lot of it goes bad very quickly (especially the bananas) as they are sourcing it from wherever is cheapest, as opposed to where is closest. They have very limited staffing, but the cashiers are usually very nice and efficient (Aldi pays one of the highest wages in the business for cashiers and provides decent benefits). I actually like that it is byob (bring your own bag) as I am SO sick of seeing shopping bags floating around the city. I think more places should follow this model to reduce waste and keep costs down.