Supreme Shop n Bag

3.50−4.99 for ground beef that has antibiotics and is non organic is absurd.
You should be able source 4.99 ground beef that is local and/​or organic.
Beyond that, I really don’t understand why you aren’t taken your business more seriously. You have a mixed income demographic and high density of shoppers in the area with relatively little competition. Please start offering a more diverse product line to meet the desires of the diverse clientele in the area.

Only go here if I need something quick and have no other choice.
Aside from ants in the condensed milk I recently purchased, another crappy thing about this place is that the bars at the entrance that keep people from stealing shopping carts also make it very difficult (if not impossible) to bring in baby strollers.
Please don’t renew the lease when it’s up.

The food here is okay — but I cringed every time I needed to go during my 2 month stay in Philly. Lines were REALLY long and it always took about 20 minutes to check out and half of the belts in the checkout were broken… The people who worked there were not very nice and the store seemed kind of old and dirty. Would not recommend shopping here!

I’ll start this out by saying their international food/​drink selection is pretty interesting and that for certain odds/​ends and the convenience factor, it’s an alright place to have around. Unfortunately, most everything else about this place is subpar, and there’s little practical/​financial reason to shop here for most food.
I’ll reiterate the common complaints: smells like dead animals, conveyors are all broken, dirty, frequently expired food, the freezers aren’t great and a lot of frozen stuff ends up being thawed out and refrozen, etc etc. I have also noticed that prices on many things have gone up a LOT since I previously lived here in 2007 – 2012.
They’re also somewhat understaffed, and unlike some others I have not found the staff very helpful. I even watched two cashiers run a scam on the store with my groceries once, only ringing me up for $ 3 on a ~$ 30 order when they saw I had a $ 50 bill in my hand. They rang up about $ 3 worth of stuff, winked at me, passed the rest by the scanner without ringing it up and said it was $ 23. $ 50 in the till, $ 47 in change out, $ 20 for them, $ 27 for me and I’m off with my ~$ 30 worth of stuff. Classy. I didn’t question it because I was broke and bewildered.
So! For staples, eggs/​dairy, cookies/​crackers/​canned goods, frozen goods, some bulk things, you’ll get equal or better quality, cheaper stuff at Aldi. Supreme’s produce is usually acceptable, but check the truck across the street for pedestrian stuff (most of it is $ 1/​bag), otherwise mariposa/​fresh grocer/​clark park farmer’s market will give you high quality produce for a usually-​only-​slightly-​higher price (Aldi’s produce sucks and goes bad FAST). Supreme isn’t terrible for meat, but Aldi is usually cheaper for bulk ground beef /​chicken breast and Fresh Grocer will give you better meat for a slightly higher price. Trader Joe’s is a trolley ride away for their weird mix of affordable and expensive products.
Shop at Supreme for the occasionally good sales and when you «need» to, but otherwise skip it to encourage them to get their act together.

I really want to love Shop n Bag. I’ve really wanted to love this grocery store for the 4+ years I’ve lived in the neighborhood. They are a large, fairly-​priced establishment that caters to the varying socioeconomic levels in the neighborhood (and surrounding neighborhoods). They carry a pretty impressive array of international foods, too. They are a much-​needed establishment and I try to support it as often as possible.
All of that being said. I am giving it two stars because 9 out of 10 times that I’ve gone there, at least one item I’ve gone into the store to purchase is expired or rotting. I have actually walked up to the conveyer belt on a few occasions only to notice an item I’m buying has visible mold. I once carried 7+ unopened containers of hummus up to the check out because they were all expired (and had sell by dates that six weeks prior to the day I came in). Tonight I informed the manager on staff that over half of his turkey sausage stock was expired… by ten days.
I’ve worked in grocery stores in my time and I’m generally very understanding of various situations, but someone had to notice. There has to be someone in charge of checking stock. Please Shop n Bag, let me like you. Let me feel comfortable buying something other than seltzer water and the occasional lemon and lime. I really really want to make you my supermarket.

They should just call this place «The Broken Belt» — the management must be so chronically unmotivated and complacent as to just let stuff slide for years and years.
This is not really a poor neighborhood. There are census tracts in the surrounding area where the household income is very close to the US median. I don’t understand why we can’t have a neighborhood supermarket of the same unremarkable quality as those found in thousands of strip malls.
Charge us more. Fix the damn belt.

Shop and Bag is a decent size market with no bells and whistles. The staff is all very friendly. As a regular, I’ve gotten to know some of them and they treat me nicer than just any old schmo who might stumble in.
They mostly have what I need. However, sometimes I cannot find items that most other markets would carry. Just this past week I was not able to get premade pizza crust. On the other side, they have some ethnic products from Mexico, Caribbean, Indian, and Middle Eastern that are harder to find elsewhere.
The main reason I keep coming back is because it’s a 2 block walk and their prices are much better than almost anywhere else in the area.
To put it briefly, it does the trick.

I like this place. No, it’s not fancy, and 80% of its conveyor belts are always broken, and it has guardrails at the entrance to prevent people from taking shopping carts.
But it has good prices. It has good produce! (Better than other nearby groceries.) It seems generally aimed at a Hispanic population with its vast array of Latin American food, but it also knows it’s near some pretty yuppie/​hippie neighborhoods, and carries things like soy yogurt and organic granola and a pretty good selection of vegetarian options. I like both those things, so I am a happy camper here. Tomatillos!
Also, its bread is really really good and really really cheap.
And the store brand of yellow corn tortilla chips is awesome, and they have a very tasty aloe vera drink.

Since I recently moved back to this neighborhood, I shop here on a regular basis. They now have a fresh seafood counter which I am pleased about. Produce is fairly nice. They have great international foods section as well as many choices for Latino espresso coffee and now they also carry starbuck’s, which is great to know. Dairy is not as big as Fresh grocer, but, they have good sales at shop n bag.

Supreme is your neighborhood friendly grocery store that offers variety of products for low prices.
1) Produces are SIGNIFICANTLY less costly than Fresh Grocer.
2) Carries LOTS of ethnic foods
3) The items are neatly organized & the whole store is easily navigated.
4) Some items are unstocked. Stock it or use the space for other products.

A no frills supermarket in the heart of West Philly. The staff here is always friendly, and they carry a wide range of goods, and pretty decent fresh produce. I did once buy a bottle of dressing that was out of date. however, when I called, the manager told me to bring it back, and she exchanged it for a larger size, and removed the one other item (dressing) that was also expired. Excellent customer service.

This grocery store has many issues, but does have its strengths so I occasionally will stop by. It has a great selection of ethnic food ingredient and the prices are also decent.
My biggest issue is with the lack of effort/​money they put into the store. They often sell expired food. I’ve also had many items ring up higher than the posted price. Once when there were 2 items that rung up higher than the posted sale price, I has to wait over 5 minutes to talk to a manager to try to get a price adjustment. By Philadelphia law, the store must give you the item for free if this happens (google Philadelphia Chapter 9 – 1800. Use Of Electronic Scanners For Customer Checkout). However, the manager argued with us, was very rude and seemed oblivious to the law. We ended up just taking the difference in price (which took the employees a long time to figure out how to do). In addition, the belts on the checkout lanes are almost all broken and the lines to check out are usually fairly long. They do lack in a good toiletry department (they have a very limited selection of items like toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant etc.) but this isn’t a big deal.
Overall, I prefer Fresh Grocer, but Shop n Bag is slightly cheaper and has a wider selection of most items.

This was one of the others I’ve been to in when I was in the neighborhood often. My friend’s ex and his family weren’t students with disposable income so they did most of their shopping here.
Good sales, relatively clean and safe store, and never an issue with the staff. They are overall a solid, plain-​old-​supermarket.

They sell expired items so beware! Always check the expiration date before buying anything here! I recently bought a bottle of honey mustard sauce and noticed after coming home that the bottle had expired in July this year! They generally price such products at a low price and sell them! Noticed this earlier with milk and yoghurt as well!

If you are skeeved out by vegetables that are not individually shrink-​wrapped, don’t come here. Aldi and the Fresh Grocer will happily charge you a few bucks a pound for the illusion of hygiene. If you want soft mood lighting cascading through the aisles, or blackboard signs hand-​chalked advertising the gourmet olive bar, go over to Whole Foods and buy your ambiance for a surcharge $ 15 per shopping trip there. If you want cashiers who will smile indulgently when your young professional self gets to the front of the line and suddenly realizes you’ve forgotten your Siggi’s and needs to «run» back to retrieve it before you check out, let those patient souls at Trader Joe’s serve you. This is a grocery store for pragmatic, no-​nonsense human beings.
The shabby atmosphere notwithstanding, you can actually purchase many of your higher end/​bourgie products like tofu, organic milk, and the like here. Specialty spices and grains like quinoa are approximately 100x cheaper than Mariposa Co-​Op. Produce selection is great, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. People are too easily scared off of their meat selection– the «choice» meats are standard mainstream grocery fare/​prices (don’t fool yourself, it’s all Perdue/​Sysco, man, if you’re not getting organic/​local), and you can get great deals on cuts like oxtail and beef knuckle, or on stock-​ingredients like chicken feet.
The cashiers are not eager suburban high schoolers, and the service here is blissfully free of forced chit-​chat and sycophancy. Treat the cashiers with real and unpatronizing politeness, as they are adults who were not placed on this earth specifically to ring up your tomatillos, and they will respond in kind with genuine friendliness.
I do wish they would fix that one belt that’s been broken for at least a year. And the non-​deli cheese selection sucks. But whatever.
Long live the Supreme.

Very competitive prices compared to Fresh Grocer. The layout of the store also makes much more sense and it’s easier to navigate. Employees are more approachable and willing to help you find your way around.
Best part is easily their fresh produce. I only buy fruits and vegetables from Shop n Bag as its always cheap and either ripe or about to ripen. Also a great place for some of the less well-​known ethnic brands. I’m originally from California and this is the only place I can find Tapatio, easily my favorite hot sauce, on the East Coast.

This place is disgusting and under-​staffed.
Every time I go here, there’s runny, pink blood smeared all over the floor and racks in the meat section. It never seems to be cleaned. It also smells considerably more foul than any other meat department I’ve been to. The overall atmosphere is just dirty and unwelcoming.
The worst part of the experience is the fact that they almost always have one or two cashiers working at a time, no matter how busy the store is. It’s not uncommon for lines to stretch halfway down an aisle and for wait times to approach 45 minutes.
Contrary to what others have said, the produce is not very good. Go to the truck across the street: produce is less expensive and much fresher.
The overall selection is OK for West Philly – not comparable to Fresh Grocer, but better than most ghetto holes in the wall. The cashiers are usually not very well-​trained, but they are friendly enough, more often than not. The deli staff are usually rude and unhelpful, and they act like you’re inconveniencing them by wanting to order something.

If you are a Drexel or Penn student and considering Fresh grocer, do yourself a favor and walk an extra two blocks to the Supreme Shop n Bag. Their prices are far far better. They have a decent selection of most general items. Their produce is reasonably fresh (at least average for produce you can get in Philly) and fairly priced.
They carry a great selection of Latin cooking ingredients and food/​drink items which is one of the main reasons why I like this store! There are usually always great sales on yogurt which if you eat yogurt like me really will save you some $.
Worst part is the checkout. Broken belts and employees who do not always know the name of the fruit/​veggie you are trying to buy. The checkout can sometimes be a slow process.

OOoh there I was all rambling about my love of sauces in that last review and it reminded me… I should talk real quick about the Supreme Shop n Bag’s International section.
Believe me, I had no intention of eyeballing this place up and down for a review when I walked in. It wasn’t like, «So you’re Supreeeme, Shop n Bag? Well, I’ll be the judge of that.»
Nah, it was just a quick run in with my friends who live in the neighborhood. You know how it goes, you run outta all paper products and chicken livers all at the same time– Ain’t that always the way? No? Oh. They just needed tp and their doggie loves them livers…
Anyway, as it wasn’t my personal shopping mission, I was just along for company, all laaah teee daaahh, dooo daaah dooo down the aisles when I was stopped in my tracks by the international section. MATOUK’S!
Matouk’s, I’d been lookin for you. Matouk’s Trinidadian hot sauce is one of my favorite hot sauces and I have been OUT… for months! Dismay, dismay! I love that hot and fruity sauce. It’s so good on everything grilled, so integral in the many ramekin-​ed line up of dipping sauces when I’m grubbin vegetarian chi’ken nuggets and such. I missed it! Couldn’d find it anywhere! I was pathetically gonna resort to an amazon dot com order except that the current method of getting packages delivered to my crib consists of them being thrown over the gate that leads to my alley abode. Nice system. No fra-​geee-​leeys.
SO. Supreme Shop n Bag carries big bottles of Matouk’s (24 oz about $ 4.69)! They’ve returned Matouk’s to it’s rightful place in the pantheon of mighty sauces, a.k.a., my refrigerator: Kingdom of condiments, it is.
The international section at this supermarket is pretty great, especially if you’re looking for Caribbean products– lotsa great stuff here. Now I stop there when I’m in the neighborhood a-​visitin’. I can stock up on there for all my Caribbean cookin needs. Hallelu ! For this reason I declare that Supreme Shop n Bag is A-​OK with me.

Better than Fresh Grocer, not as cheap as ALDI but definitely a lot cleaner and more selection. And even then, it’s still pretty cheap.
Super convenient location, I don’t know what people are talking about as far as a «smell» because I didn’t notice a thing. I’m a small girl and I went at around 10:00pm and felt safe. Staff are alright.
It won’t have the organic selection you can find at Trader Joe’s but for the price, Supreme is hard to beat!