Treasure Island Foods

Horrible customer service. Went in for my first time and asked the person behind the deli if there was a line and he just looked at me like an idiot and said nothing. I asked again.nothing. i called the manager and he got me someone to help me but he was rude also. I left the store. Stay away. Rude and unhelpful.

Ridiculously overpriced.
Meat department is the most unaccommodating department in the store.
Checkers are pleasant, salad bar is clean and fresh. Just a place I might run in to get very
few items in a rush.

I live in the neighborhood and have shopped here for 14 years. They don’t come close to having everything I need, so it’s necessary to frequent other area stores. That said, many of the things I do purchase at the Island are unavailable elsewhere, and the quickness and convenience of a small grocery – no mile-​long aisles to circumnavigate – is a plus. This is the place for unusual spices/​sauces, Cabot whipped cream (one of the few that doesn’t contain carrageenan), well-​priced Kerrygold butter (grassfed), decent selection of European chocolate bars and unique local products and baked goods. Don’t know where the bagels come from, but they’re very good, especially the sesame. Also, their produce is some of the best in the area. I disagree with comments about unfriendly staff. I’ve always found everyone very pleasant and miss the guys who used to weigh the produce. One well-​kept secret is the yummy fresh gyros available right off the spit on Friday evenings. Absolute best ever! They also sell homemade tzatziki sauce. Tracking someone down to slice and pack up the gyros isn’t always easy but definitely worth the wait/​slight inconvenience. Maybe they’re trying to hoard all that Greek deliciousness for themselves!

Very compact, poor customer service. I was shocked that a store employee broke the line to pay for his items, it was my first and will be my last time. There are much better stores to shop around, don’t waste your time there.

I love their veggies and the deli counter is very good. Tonight I picked up meatloaf and potato pancakes; or at least I thought I had. The meatloaf was not meat. I think it was a tree bark-​turd combo;Hard and dry kinda like an old super model. The potato pancake was at least round but no potato in there. Maybe stale wood chips. Seems like they are trying to sell good from demas; which closed a couple of years ago.
From now on I’m sticking with fresh market or whole foods. And check out Mariano’s. It’s very impressive

I do not do much big grocery shopping here however, this place is great if you need a few quick things. The lines are never long and the staff is always polite to me. With that being said, the main reason I come here is for the wonderful salad bar. It is a wonderful and healthy lunch option and is very reasonably priced. At first glance, the salad bar does not appear to be overly impressive however it has the best and most fresh ingredients and is better than other salad bars in the area and certainly better than any other grocery store salad bar.

— Poor Customer Service
— To expensive
— They hire to many people to sit around
— The ones they do hire are very unfriendly
I will never be going back or recommending it to anyone.

I normally hate grocery shopping, but love this store. It makes a really nice shopping experience, because everything is of good quality and fairly priced for the quality. The staff is helpful and professional about their jobs, especially in the produce and meat sections. Real butchers can help you! This is the only store I know where I can count on all produce being good. The prices are comparable to other stores. Some produce may be a little more, but since it is always good, it lasts longer, and I don’t end up throwing it out or being unpleasantly surprised when I go to use it. Likewise with the meat. It is higher quality than other groceries, and you will never be disappointed in the quality. You get what you pay for. What I don’t like is paying high prices at other groceries, and yet being disappointed in the quality. They have some top of the line items, which do cost more, but are fairly priced. Great salad bar, bakery, and deli, and fresh ready-​to-​cook convenience items. I really like supporting a store where quality matters.

I’m very familiar with the Treasure Islands downtown, which I always felt shared some aspects with the Sunset Foods locations in the suburbs. Treasure’s downtown stores occasionally offered some very good deals and the selection was not vast, but was certainly unique in many regards.
I’d never been in this Wilmette location. I’ll say this: it’s something for all of the people who live around this area on Ridge, as while I wouldn’t mind the walk, it’s admittedly a far walk from here to the groceries in downtown Wilmette.
The store itself feels like a small, older market that you might find in a small town in Wisconsin. It seems caught in a time warp — it’s very late ’60’s/early ’70’s-era and it’s almost as if nothing has been changed. Additionally, while Treasure has always been known for its varied, exotic selection, this location seemed to veer more towards the normal stuff you can find in most stores. Prices here also seemed expensive in a way that, similar to Grand/​Dee Jays in Glencoe/​Winnetka, are high because they know there’s no competition right nearby.
This is OK as a convenient option for people who live nearby, but it really needs an update. Given the popularity of exotic foods and the fact that this is a really good location, this could be made into a destination for more than just people in the nearby area.

I like it. It’s cute. Right now they have huge ice cream sale. In addition, I found here very nice cuts of steak meat for dinner and turkey burgers too for next day. You have to be patient when you come here, the store moves slowly because of the clientele. But I had a very nice experience and will probably go back this week.

*Update at the bottom
If you’re looking for an absolutely horrible shopping experience, be sure to stop by this «Treasure»…
I’d like to keep things succinct, however all the details are required in this case.
Stopped by on a Sunday to browse the merchandise. Saw an interesting bottle of cola, made with cane sugar. Price as labeled in the aisle: $ 1.29. Picked up a few more things and paid. Double checked my receipt and noticed that I was charged $ 5.19 for the cola + $ 0.43 in tax. Went to the cashier to retun the bottle for a refund. Initially the cashier wanted to refund me $ 1.29. I pointed out that this was incorrect. The cashier called over his manager, Patrick, who tried to figure things out. Patrick went to look at the price of the cola in the isle and came back, irked because these colas weren’t supposed to be sold individually and $ 5.19 was the price for a pack. He over rode the initial refund, now I was going to get a refund of $ 3 and some change. I pointed out that again that was wrong. I had paid $ 5.19 + $ 0.43 in tax, thus I wanted a refund of $ 5.62. At this point Patrick became rude, condescending and irate. No matter how many times I tried to explain/​teach him and the cashier basic math, he insisted that the refund was correct. Because the individual item was not in their point of purchase system they actually had to figure things out by themselves. Patrick raised his voice, used blasphemy and made it very clear that dealing with this was exasperating. In the end I took what they offered, four $ 1 singles and some loose change.
A dollar isn’t that much and mistakes are made. But the way he handled it and treated a customer is under no circumstances acceptable. I am still in possession of the receipt and will pursue this with their corporate head office.
— — — — — — —
Spoke to the complaints department at corporate. Guy had no problem understanding the refund I was entitled to. Apologized for the unnaceptable behaviour of Patrick.

I agree with much of what the other reviewers had to say about Treasure Island on Ridge — it is a weird, off-​kilter, time-​warpy kind of place. A few of the managers can be total JERKS. But… for the money, the produce is really great. It is so much fresher than the stuff at Jewel, Dominicks, or Fresh Market (don’t get me started on Fresh Market’s often poor-​quality and VERY expensive produce — for that kind of money I expect perfection). Frankly, TI frequently has better produce than Whole Food’s. Yes, you do need to keep an eagle-​eye out for over-​ripe produce. But I’d rather have the choice of something ripe vs. the hard-​as-​a-​rock, will-​never-​get-​ripe factory fruits and vegetables that I often see at Jewel and the like. My biggest complaint about TI is the crappy refrigeration of the meat/​cheese/​dairy section. I have high hopes that they will update these units as they continue their store improvements. After too many foul fowls and meats past their prime, I have begun opening the packages and checking them at the store (yes I feel like a nut-​job, but I have had to return way too many things to the meat department). It’s too much of a pain to return the spoiled stuff, and God forbid if you’ve lost your receipt (even though you have the original packaging with the TI label and date on it), you’ll have a helluva time getting them to give you a credit for the rancid returned item. So yes, that is a big complaint. But I still prefer TI to Jewel, Dominick’s and the despised Fresh Market. I agree the person from Minneapolis — the grocery store situation here SUCKS. Even Des Moines has much better grocery stores!

Agree with David about the space-​time problem at this place. Two things totally honk me off about Treasure Island: it is the only place with a wide selection of gourmet and international foods and its target market is Wilmette and Kenilworth. Yet the guy who owns it is too lazy to expand this into a place you might want to ACTUALLY want to shop at. He likes his profit-​margin just the way it is. I guess there’s no real competition for a lot of this stuff?
So if you’re making a nice meal, you’ll stop here for meat & produce & deli. Then you’ll still have to go to Jewel to get bulk items. And you will still have to go to Schaefers for some wine. Ugh. European-​stye shopping indeed.
The other thing that still amazes me is that after living here 10 years and shopping constantly at this place, only one person here acts like they even know me. (The irreplaceable Gus in produce) They’re not rude — just can’t be bothered. What’s the use of shopping small cramped locally-​owned place if people there treat you like you’re at the BestBuy in Manhattan?
I used to live in Minneapolis — within 5 miles I had Lunds, Kowalskis and Byerlys, all just amazing. Grocery shopping around here totally SUCKS. i know I know. I gotta let it go.

Hmm, this is an odd little store. It’s like everything and everyone it it, as well as store itself, is 3% out of phase with normal space-​time. In the general form, and on the surface, this may look like a regular grocery store, but your unconscious will sense the unsettling reality in ways that your conscious mind cannot fully articulate.
However, they do have Kerrygold Irish butter, and for only $ 3.99 – two full dollars less than the two Jewels in the vicinity. PLUS, they boast a Kerrygold product which I had never seen: an 8.8-ounce sealable tub. That, plus a bag of carrots for 89 cents and Dole orange-​pineapple juice partially redressed my frustration with all the things that they apparently DON’T carry.
Kerrygold Irish butter for four bucks – book it. Worth the Twilight Zone experience. Barely.

$ 6.49 for mayonnaise. No bricks of Parmesan. Fail.
I still can’t get over that. $ 6.49 for a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise. Not some fancy European mayonnaise, just good old Hellman’s. As we walked thru the store I kept shaking my head and saying «do you know what that would cost at Jewel or Dominick’s??? My husband had been wanting to check out Treasure Island so we ventured over one Sunday not to long ago. The first thing that struck me was how empty the store was. Normally you find a few dozen people (at least) doing weekend grocery shopping, but not here. I think we were about 2 of 10 people total in the store mid-​afternoon. Maybe Wilmetters don’t grocery shop on Sunday afternoon?
The store is very nice, clean, organized. exactly what you want in a grocery store. The prices, however, are just too high, and the selection isn’t that great. I was making a dish for dinner and wanted a hunk, a brick of Parmesan. Not to be found. Anywhere. There was shredded 100 yr. old Parmesan (I swear), but not a solid piece in the store. The produce department was a bit lackluster, too. My husband is from the East Coast so I was explaining to him that back in the day, Treasure Island was the 80’s version of Whole Foods. I don’t know if they haven’t wanted to keep up with the times or maybe this location doesn’t think it’s necessary, but, when you’re charging fancy grocery store prices you should have fancy grocery store selections. Not so much here. And, I was shocked to see they still have the old school guy in the produce area that weighs and bags your items for you. It’s kitschy I guess, but, unnecessary.
With 2 Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Dominick’s, Jewel, and Food 4 Less for the bargain shopping, yeah, won’t be going back.

This grocer is just down the street from my home so I can’t help but like it. It’s my local go to place when I don’t want to drive all the way to a Dominick’s or Whole Foods. It’s a little outdated décor wise but I think that’s what makes it charming. The important thing is that it is clean, has fresh produce and reasonable prices.
I particularly like this place because it has items that are harder to find. It does not however have a massive selection of shampoo or laundry soap but if you are making a recipe and have forgotten some items or can’t find them at Dominick’s then this is the place for you.
I find their produce to be fresh and well stocked as well as meats and cheeses too. They have every kind of olive oil you could ever want. The store is not so exotic that you can’t find Eggos or Cheerios. I think their prices are competitive and not at all overpriced like other reviews have claimed.

Years ago TI used to have a major store on Waukegan Ave, in Bannockburn, that was bought out by Dominicks. That store was awesome, very international.
Several years later i bumped into this store, which by appearance seems to be the original, ie. small and old.
Size wise it is about as big as a present day Walmart and seems to be from the 70’s, size wise is a concern but the age means nothing to me other than the décor.
Selection, based on the size was fairly limited, with a few gourmet selections per isle. Prices seemed fairly high.
A limited local grocery store past its prime.

I love this grocery store (I never thought I would say that I loved a grocery store!). They have really nice, fresh produce every time I go here. I actually think their produce is better than Whole Foods, where I have purchased some less than stellar produce. The store itself is not very large. Their meats are good quality and they have a wonderful cheese selection, and olive bar. Like Liz said, it would be nice if they carried wine. The staff is always friendly and helpful. Its definitely not cheap but worth it for the quality of food.

Treasure Island has been around for as long as I can remember. When I was growing up, it was considered the place to get exotic, imported food — the parents would always say, «that place is too expensive!» and suggest another store like Jewel or Dominick’s instead. Which of course made it all the more appealing (as you vow to yourself that one day, one day, you will be able to buy all of the exotic food that you want!). Also, it was kind of dusty, like that food had come over on a slow-​sailing ship from far-​away lands, brought to the store in large wooden crates by pirates.
Imported food is no longer a rarity, so today it just seems like a humble, eclectic grocery store. I stopped in the other day to pick up cheese and crackers, and flowers to take to some friends’ for dinner. It was easy since they had my favorite aged Gouda, Old Amsterdam, a triple-​cream, and some seeded flatbreads, and nice pink parrot tulips. They don’t sell wine, which is a bit of a drawback — it would be one-​stop shopping otherwise.
I love the fact that they have a butcher counter, which is so much better than selecting your meat out of a bin.
It’s nice to see this business intact after so many years. And now I can buy whatever I want — ha!