The Price Rite supermarket right in front of the Market Basket and there for a while now is literally half the price of places like Stop & Shop and way less thank Market basket.
It doesn't carry the selection of most supermarkets but what it does have you will save a lot on for sure.
Wonder how it will survive with Market Basket behind it.
Price Right has a lot of their own brand (which I find Market Basket's superior to), and its kinda meh. Their prices are OK.. about the same as Market Basket.
Why would someone shop between the two stores when they aren't going to save much more by buying a bunch of no-name brands?
Have you really looked in Price Rite? It's all the brands you buy everywhere else.
I get tons of produce there for HALF the price of MB.
Chicken breasts are .99/pound
Corando ham and maple turkey 2.99/pound
Not to mention Captain Crunch, Prego, Skippy, Hood ice cream (2.00), tons of brands.
You save a ton more. I shop at the MB in Middleton too and Hannafords. SO much more.
When I lived in Revere, I was there almost weekly as the bus stop in front of my home dropped me off right in front of that store (the 119 bus)
I wouldn't shake a stick at the produce and meat. The meat cases always smelled bad, and the produce....let's just say I've seen better produce at Haymarket on a summer afternoon. Most of the stuff at PR looked like it was about to rot. I always went to Stop & Shop and paid more for produce and meat because PR's just looked nasty.
You get what you pay for... That and sorry, one check out that is 7 people deep and I have to bag my own groceries. No thanks, not to save a few pennies. I'd rather deal with the Chelsea Zoo (Chelsea Market Basket)
Produce dept in Goldstar Blvd. Worcester is very good. If Revere produce is bad it's either not busy enough or the workers aren't up to snuff.
Price Rite is like a 1980s food warehouse store. Think Heartland but lower quality and no service departments.
They are a NJ outfit, so their stuff is sourced NY/NJ, so they have different vendors than any of the other Eastern MA chains.
Great place to buy Centos tomato cans, Friendly's ice cream, mangos/tropical stuff, bananas, basil plants, 3lb ground turkey, francesco renaldi spagetti sauce, quarts of flavored creamers other than coffemate. They sell name brand hams at good prices.
Avoid the chicken, it's watered down with 15% broth (salty/less fresh)
Milk is usually close to expiration! Watch out.
"special buy" brand name items are often overstock close to expiration items. Watch out!
Bathrooms are few and somewhat unclean.
Would be interesting to compare Goya prices since both sell them.
Price is similar to MB or Walmart, but MB has the edge in quality, completeness, helpfulness or just caring.
I knew about the store opening in mid-September as I caught the roll vendor talking about it.
I asked.. he says.. it will initially but realize that Chelsea has twice as much parking, twice as much product, and twice as many registered, people will come back to the Chelsea Store.
Revere will serve the residents of Revere, but the 'big shoppers' will still go to Market Basket in Chelsea.
I don't brave that place alone, unless it is after 7:30 pm on a Tuesday!
Even then, it is freaking huge!
We tend to shop it as a family. Each person gets a sector and a list. One person has the cart, the others baskets. Person with the cart gets the outer aisles territory. The rest make safaris into the interior. Teens are paid in hot empanadas and other treats from the hot food counter.
My trick for the Chelsea Market Basket is early mornings also. Sometimes they open the store before its posted hours! ;)
I've shopped almost exclusively at the Chelsea Market Basket for a few years now, so I have all the tricks. Hell I even do my grocery list based how the store is laid out.
Like you, I don't push the cart down the aisles when its super busy. I tend to find a spot to park my cart and shop one or two aisles on foot. It's SO much faster, especially if you are going into an aisle for one or two things.
And if you need items in the deli, and its busy. First thing you do when you walk into the store is to go to the deli counter and get a number. Make note on what number they are on, and then hit the first few aisles. Just check back every few minutes to see what number they are on, and when they are 4-8 away, just stand there. (it won't be long.) Then it doesn't seem like you stood there for 20 minutes at the deli before you were served since you did some shopping while you waited.
I usually leave something expendable on the cart, too - like an old jacket - so my minions know which cart to unload into.
Get the lactose free milk - 4-5 big containers. Park cart near the deli and take a number. Coconut milk, coffee pods, and some guava nectar and check back on the number. Maybe hit some of the meat aisle before return.
Guava ? coconut milk? Coffee pods? minions and expendable markers? Swirls , no ambiance in that experience what so ever! No smell of the freshly ground coffee like the A & P Eight O'Clock Coffee and their special grinder , no sawdust on the floor by the meat dept. Please tell me you at least picked up a 20 lb bag of spuds.....
If I'm "waiting" at the deli, I do the aisles near the deli without the cart - end of the dairy aisle, condensed milk, coffee, Goyaland. I only use the coffee pods for work, and MB has them much cheaper than anywhere else.
20lbs of potatoes is a given - but at the other end of the store. 5lb of sweet potatoes, and 5lbs of onions, too! For these and the 10kg of rice I want the cart with me.
Plenty of sawdust by where they have the value-packs of chicken breast, double-packs of spicy italian sausage, and ground pork for the meatloaf further down.
this is the beauty of Market Basket. Not only can you get ramen for 600 for a dollar, but you can get specialty items too. Market Basket isn't just for low income folks. Many of my Whole Paycheck purist friends, are pleasantly surprised at the number of organic and not-so-typical grocery items Market Basket carries.
Why? because MB listens to its customers. You don't see something, simply ask. They will listen and stock the item. A few years ago I had a craving for Luzianne Coffee.. something not really sold up here. I gave the grocery manager my contact information, and a week later he called and said they got a few cases in and to come on buy. (I bought several cans because I felt like he ordered it just for me..)
You simply cannot beat them for the variety of stuff that you can find there.
Asian? Most cuisines - they probably have at least some of it. Twenty different Hispanic cuisines? Yep.
Lowell Acre has good stock of Greek and Near Eastern stuff, too. It was very easy for me to take a group of newly-arrived Albanian grad students through there with an Albanian-American cookbook from the church where my in-laws were married, and set them up with various foods and approximations that they could use to make familiar stuff.
Then there is MB Greek Yogurt. I don't like most of the brands, and they are over priced anyway. I figured MB would get it right at half the price. I was not disappointed and now I don't buy any other kind. Their house-brand bagels are a good value, too.
Bagels... I don't buy any other brand. Mmm. Actually I typically buy their brand, unless its something that I just don't like. very rarely I am disappointed.
I'd hope they'd know Greek Yogurt. I think Mr Demoulas himself would be upset if it didn't pass his standards (since he is Greek.. although Greek Yogurt really isn't greek)
I'm getting mighty tired of the Stop 'n Shop near me in Watertown. The folks who work there are nice enough, but management is insane. They've completely redone the layout of the store three times in the past twelve or fifteen months. As soon as I've gotten used to it, to the point where I know where things are located and I can minimize my time in the store, they move everything around again. Aggravating as hell.
And it's not as though the quality of the merchandise makes it worthwhile to put up with the multiple rearrangements. OK for the most part - I've shopped there for some time and don't find a lot to outright complain about in that regard - but it's nothing I'd travel any further for.
As soon as I've gotten used to it, to the point where I know where things are located and I can minimize my time in the store, they move everything around again. Aggravating as hell.
Man, if that isn't sounding like an old guy. ;-)
(I can make that remark because I'm even older than you)
When I go shopping on Saturday morning at 7am (when half of the shoppers - which aren't many - are old guys like me) they usually have ONE actual cashier on duty. And they stick her down at the far end of the 17 or 18 checkouts.
Now, it's not so much the ONE cashier that bugs me. It's early; there aren't too many shoppers. But they've expanded the "self-checkout" to 6 or 7 stations, and all of those are located in the logical place where shoppers are likely to finish. If you want to go to an actual human being, you need to travel all the way to the other end of the store and that's where most folks enter the store and pick up a cart.
The tactic is to expand the self-checkouts gradually and eliminate people. One item or fifty, I will not go to a self-checkout and justify this huge corporation cutting out small earners like the cashiers.
I welcome a somewhat nearby Market Basket because I am perilously close to telling Stop 'n Shop to get offen my lawn.
Yes I noticed this during the Market Basket Boycott. S&S Has remodeled their layout several times. Its almost confusing now. I think this is coming from Ahold, and not store management. Every day Stop & Shop and its sister company Giant are becoming one. (you can walk into a newer Giant in DC and if it wasn't for the signage, you'd think you were at Stop & Shop)
Market Basket stores haven't changed much. As I said above I do my grocery list based on how the store is laid out.
Check out the Waltham Market Basket, its a treat. You'll save some bucks too.
There used to be a Stop&Shop in Chelmsford Center, the only market there. They bought a parcel of land some miles away, next to the Rtes 3 and 495 interchange. Built a nice new store. Only problem is that it's across the street from a newly-renovated Market Basket. S&S got a lot of traffic during the Arthur S. vs. Arthur T. dustup, when everyone noted the higher prices and limited selection of produce, etc. I doubt that they gained any loyal customers from among the MB regulars, but I suspect some S&S shoppers went across the street out of curiosity.
at 7 am. I see ads for this on MBTA buses all over Cambridge, even though no T bus serves the store. (The closest one would be #350, and you'd have to walk a mile up Middlesex Turnpike from Burlington Mall Road.)
I was measuring from the #350 stop at Macy's in the mall, but there's a closer stop on Mall Road itself. Still, longer than most people would want to walk with groceries.
Comments
Price Rite
The Price Rite supermarket right in front of the Market Basket and there for a while now is literally half the price of places like Stop & Shop and way less thank Market basket.
It doesn't carry the selection of most supermarkets but what it does have you will save a lot on for sure.
I honestly
Wonder how it will survive with Market Basket behind it.
Price Right has a lot of their own brand (which I find Market Basket's superior to), and its kinda meh. Their prices are OK.. about the same as Market Basket.
Why would someone shop between the two stores when they aren't going to save much more by buying a bunch of no-name brands?
I see Price Rights days numbered...
You're crazy
Have you really looked in Price Rite? It's all the brands you buy everywhere else.
I get tons of produce there for HALF the price of MB.
Chicken breasts are .99/pound
Corando ham and maple turkey 2.99/pound
Not to mention Captain Crunch, Prego, Skippy, Hood ice cream (2.00), tons of brands.
You save a ton more. I shop at the MB in Middleton too and Hannafords. SO much more.
yes I have
When I lived in Revere, I was there almost weekly as the bus stop in front of my home dropped me off right in front of that store (the 119 bus)
I wouldn't shake a stick at the produce and meat. The meat cases always smelled bad, and the produce....let's just say I've seen better produce at Haymarket on a summer afternoon. Most of the stuff at PR looked like it was about to rot. I always went to Stop & Shop and paid more for produce and meat because PR's just looked nasty.
You get what you pay for... That and sorry, one check out that is 7 people deep and I have to bag my own groceries. No thanks, not to save a few pennies. I'd rather deal with the Chelsea Zoo (Chelsea Market Basket)
Price Rite has some good
Price Rite has some good stuff and some issues...
Produce dept in Goldstar Blvd. Worcester is very good. If Revere produce is bad it's either not busy enough or the workers aren't up to snuff.
Price Rite is like a 1980s food warehouse store. Think Heartland but lower quality and no service departments.
They are a NJ outfit, so their stuff is sourced NY/NJ, so they have different vendors than any of the other Eastern MA chains.
Great place to buy Centos tomato cans, Friendly's ice cream, mangos/tropical stuff, bananas, basil plants, 3lb ground turkey, francesco renaldi spagetti sauce, quarts of flavored creamers other than coffemate. They sell name brand hams at good prices.
Avoid the chicken, it's watered down with 15% broth (salty/less fresh)
Milk is usually close to expiration! Watch out.
"special buy" brand name items are often overstock close to expiration items. Watch out!
Bathrooms are few and somewhat unclean.
Would be interesting to compare Goya prices since both sell them.
Price is similar to MB or Walmart, but MB has the edge in quality, completeness, helpfulness or just caring.
Maybe this will relieve some
Maybe this will relieve some of the congestion at the Chelsea MB. Unless you go at 8 am you have to push others out of your way with your cart.
Funny
I knew about the store opening in mid-September as I caught the roll vendor talking about it.
I asked.. he says.. it will initially but realize that Chelsea has twice as much parking, twice as much product, and twice as many registered, people will come back to the Chelsea Store.
Revere will serve the residents of Revere, but the 'big shoppers' will still go to Market Basket in Chelsea.
Team Shopping
I don't brave that place alone, unless it is after 7:30 pm on a Tuesday!
Even then, it is freaking huge!
We tend to shop it as a family. Each person gets a sector and a list. One person has the cart, the others baskets. Person with the cart gets the outer aisles territory. The rest make safaris into the interior. Teens are paid in hot empanadas and other treats from the hot food counter.
Chelsea
My trick for the Chelsea Market Basket is early mornings also. Sometimes they open the store before its posted hours! ;)
I've shopped almost exclusively at the Chelsea Market Basket for a few years now, so I have all the tricks. Hell I even do my grocery list based how the store is laid out.
Like you, I don't push the cart down the aisles when its super busy. I tend to find a spot to park my cart and shop one or two aisles on foot. It's SO much faster, especially if you are going into an aisle for one or two things.
And if you need items in the deli, and its busy. First thing you do when you walk into the store is to go to the deli counter and get a number. Make note on what number they are on, and then hit the first few aisles. Just check back every few minutes to see what number they are on, and when they are 4-8 away, just stand there. (it won't be long.) Then it doesn't seem like you stood there for 20 minutes at the deli before you were served since you did some shopping while you waited.
Good strategy!
I usually leave something expendable on the cart, too - like an old jacket - so my minions know which cart to unload into.
Get the lactose free milk - 4-5 big containers. Park cart near the deli and take a number. Coconut milk, coffee pods, and some guava nectar and check back on the number. Maybe hit some of the meat aisle before return.
Guava ? coconut milk? Coffee
Guava ? coconut milk? Coffee pods? minions and expendable markers? Swirls , no ambiance in that experience what so ever! No smell of the freshly ground coffee like the A & P Eight O'Clock Coffee and their special grinder , no sawdust on the floor by the meat dept. Please tell me you at least picked up a 20 lb bag of spuds.....
That stuff is at the other end
If I'm "waiting" at the deli, I do the aisles near the deli without the cart - end of the dairy aisle, condensed milk, coffee, Goyaland. I only use the coffee pods for work, and MB has them much cheaper than anywhere else.
20lbs of potatoes is a given - but at the other end of the store. 5lb of sweet potatoes, and 5lbs of onions, too! For these and the 10kg of rice I want the cart with me.
Plenty of sawdust by where they have the value-packs of chicken breast, double-packs of spicy italian sausage, and ground pork for the meatloaf further down.
*snicker*
Goyaland LOL
Thanks. I needed a chuckle today, Swirls..
but thats the beauty
this is the beauty of Market Basket. Not only can you get ramen for 600 for a dollar, but you can get specialty items too. Market Basket isn't just for low income folks. Many of my Whole Paycheck purist friends, are pleasantly surprised at the number of organic and not-so-typical grocery items Market Basket carries.
Why? because MB listens to its customers. You don't see something, simply ask. They will listen and stock the item. A few years ago I had a craving for Luzianne Coffee.. something not really sold up here. I gave the grocery manager my contact information, and a week later he called and said they got a few cases in and to come on buy. (I bought several cans because I felt like he ordered it just for me..)
Ethnic Foods
You simply cannot beat them for the variety of stuff that you can find there.
Asian? Most cuisines - they probably have at least some of it. Twenty different Hispanic cuisines? Yep.
Lowell Acre has good stock of Greek and Near Eastern stuff, too. It was very easy for me to take a group of newly-arrived Albanian grad students through there with an Albanian-American cookbook from the church where my in-laws were married, and set them up with various foods and approximations that they could use to make familiar stuff.
Then there is MB Greek Yogurt. I don't like most of the brands, and they are over priced anyway. I figured MB would get it right at half the price. I was not disappointed and now I don't buy any other kind. Their house-brand bagels are a good value, too.
Bagels
Bagels... I don't buy any other brand. Mmm. Actually I typically buy their brand, unless its something that I just don't like. very rarely I am disappointed.
I'd hope they'd know Greek Yogurt. I think Mr Demoulas himself would be upset if it didn't pass his standards (since he is Greek.. although Greek Yogurt really isn't greek)
Look at the plant code on the
Look at the plant code on the MB greek yogurt. It's made by Hood
Waltham and Littleton Market Baskets also opening soon
Help wanted ads for both locations are posted in the Somerville Market Basket.
Waltham?
Any location given, Ron, or just a general one for applications?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
1265 Main St.
Or, the "former Polaroid site."
Waltham Market Basket
1265 Main Street, formerly a Polaroid facility.
My retired landlady just got a job at the Waltham MB!
She was going to stay retired, but she says and I quote, "I want to work for Artie T!"
Anyhoo, she says the Waltham store will be opening on Dec 9 or 10.
Worth A Look
I'm getting mighty tired of the Stop 'n Shop near me in Watertown. The folks who work there are nice enough, but management is insane. They've completely redone the layout of the store three times in the past twelve or fifteen months. As soon as I've gotten used to it, to the point where I know where things are located and I can minimize my time in the store, they move everything around again. Aggravating as hell.
And it's not as though the quality of the merchandise makes it worthwhile to put up with the multiple rearrangements. OK for the most part - I've shopped there for some time and don't find a lot to outright complain about in that regard - but it's nothing I'd travel any further for.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Getting old, dog? ;-)
Man, if that isn't sounding like an old guy. ;-)
(I can make that remark because I'm even older than you)
Yeah, I Know, Huh?
Let me be even more crotchety.
When I go shopping on Saturday morning at 7am (when half of the shoppers - which aren't many - are old guys like me) they usually have ONE actual cashier on duty. And they stick her down at the far end of the 17 or 18 checkouts.
Now, it's not so much the ONE cashier that bugs me. It's early; there aren't too many shoppers. But they've expanded the "self-checkout" to 6 or 7 stations, and all of those are located in the logical place where shoppers are likely to finish. If you want to go to an actual human being, you need to travel all the way to the other end of the store and that's where most folks enter the store and pick up a cart.
The tactic is to expand the self-checkouts gradually and eliminate people. One item or fifty, I will not go to a self-checkout and justify this huge corporation cutting out small earners like the cashiers.
I welcome a somewhat nearby Market Basket because I am perilously close to telling Stop 'n Shop to get offen my lawn.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Stop & Shop
Yes I noticed this during the Market Basket Boycott. S&S Has remodeled their layout several times. Its almost confusing now. I think this is coming from Ahold, and not store management. Every day Stop & Shop and its sister company Giant are becoming one. (you can walk into a newer Giant in DC and if it wasn't for the signage, you'd think you were at Stop & Shop)
Market Basket stores haven't changed much. As I said above I do my grocery list based on how the store is laid out.
Check out the Waltham Market Basket, its a treat. You'll save some bucks too.
S & S
There used to be a Stop&Shop in Chelmsford Center, the only market there. They bought a parcel of land some miles away, next to the Rtes 3 and 495 interchange. Built a nice new store. Only problem is that it's across the street from a newly-renovated Market Basket. S&S got a lot of traffic during the Arthur S. vs. Arthur T. dustup, when everyone noted the higher prices and limited selection of produce, etc. I doubt that they gained any loyal customers from among the MB regulars, but I suspect some S&S shoppers went across the street out of curiosity.
In other grocery news, Wegman's in Burlington opens this Sunday
at 7 am. I see ads for this on MBTA buses all over Cambridge, even though no T bus serves the store. (The closest one would be #350, and you'd have to walk a mile up Middlesex Turnpike from Burlington Mall Road.)
That's not a mile
Less than half a mile to the Wegmans.
Point taken
I was measuring from the #350 stop at Macy's in the mall, but there's a closer stop on Mall Road itself. Still, longer than most people would want to walk with groceries.