Ocean State Job Lot

I’m rating this store only on it’s food section. Honestly, the rest of the store sells poor quality crap. But somehow they hit the jackpot with their non-​perishable dry goods food section.
If you are into Bob’s Red Mill products, they have it. They have the largest selection I’ve ever seen anywhere and low prices to boot.
They have rice flour, almond flour, chick pea flour, all purpose gluten-​free flour, all sorts of pancake, waffle and oatmeal blends filled with the godmess of nuts, seeds, dried berries and whatnot. They have grains such as quinoa, millet and who knows what else. So many seeds such as sunflower, sesame, chia. They have different cuts of cornmeal, tapioca and oats. So many amazing oatmeal blends. So much goodness both gluten free or not that it will blow your mind with the selection and prices.
They also have a nice selection of DeCecco dried Italian pasta. Most grocery stores only have a few varieties if any at all. OSJL has a great variety at half the price. This is the only dried pasta I buy because it has such a great bite to it and doesn’t get mushy or gummy like other store brands (Ronzoni is awful as are store brands and even Barrilla).
They have high end gourmet organic crackers, a great selection of gourmet jarred olives, pickles and capers and so much more.
Again, the prices are fantastic and the selections are amazing.
And again this review is just for their food section. The rest of the store is not even worth browsing. Skip it all and go for the food.

Ocean state job lot use to be a place to get everyday items at really great prices. one thing that use to be cheap were bottles of shampoo at 2 and 3 dollars a bottle, today i went in expecting to pay the same price as usual and it appears they have marked up the prices on a lot of goods, now they are the same if not more than the grocery stores. i have also noticed that this store is not very busy any more probably due to how high the prices are. If you lower your prices i am sure more people will shop there again.

I’ve thought a lot about what type of store Ocean State Job Lot is, and haven’t come up with a direct analog.
It’s not a warehouse store, like Sam’s or Costco, although it does have some bulk items cheap. Sometimes it has surprisingly good stuff (like, who knew they carry a complete line of Bob’s flour-​baking stuff, at a cheaper price than anywhere else?) but it is like them in a way in that it has a wildly unpredictable variety of goods in stock that constantly changes based on whatever fell off the truck most recently. And you don’t have to be a member to shop, which is a big plus.
It’s not really a dollar store, because it generally has better goods, but it often has cheap stuff (both in dollar value, and in terms of bad construction).
It’s not an outdoor store, a hardware store, or a furniture store, although it carries just enough goods from each category that it’s usually worth checking out if you’re in the market for an item.
It’s not a gift store, although my parents tend to buy half their Christmas presents there for the price. My wife and I have a running joke every Christmas about how much Santa shops at Ocean State.
It’s not a Pier 1 Imports, although it’s more like the old Pier One style of having bizarre stuff from foreign locations cheap than the present-​day Pier One is.
It’s not quite a K-​Mart, although it shares both the variety of goods and the generally dim, depressing, grubby retail layout.
What is Ocean State? It finally came to me today.
It’s a piñata!
You just keep whacking at it, eventually treasure will fall out, and you have no idea whether it’s going to be stale penny candy or some precious pearl of a bargain. You have to keep going back until you break it open and find out.
I enjoy Ocean State, but I shop there the way I shop at thrift stores and used furniture places: when I’m in the mood for hunting for something I don’t actually need but am feeling too cheap to splurge on something expensive, not as a destination store for anything in particular.
This particular OSJL is like every other OSJL I’ve ever been in, in that it feels completely the same but has a different set of goods every time you go in. That this location is cheek and jowl with three or four other dollar or dollar-​style stores makes this either a destination for the bargain shopper or a depressing end of the road for staples, depending on how little money you’ve got left in the bank.
Somehow it’s fitting that this is the most famous chain named after our tiny state with the big name, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Something weird always seems to happen to me when I visit Rhode Island, and something weird always ends up going home with me when I visit Ocean State Job Lot. Let the weirdness thrive!

Its like a BigLots, only bigger, and Better and has great stuff with great prices, a lot of name brands you will recognize.