Chicago area grocery stores (Aurora, Carpentersville: coupons, live, restaurant)

[pete6032]

What is your favorite grocery store for:

1. Quality fresh fruit and vegetables

2. Best bargains on basics like milk, bread, pasta, pretzels, lunchmeat, etc.

[Freefall18]

For the 2nd, it's hard to beat the Trader Joe's experience

[pidgeon92]

1. I love my local grocery, Edgewater Produce, for very good fruits and vegetables.

2. Costco.

[Attrill]

#1 is a bit complicated. In general for chains I'd say the quality in descending order would be Whole Foods, Marianos, Strack and Van Til, and then Jewel. Stanley's is good, but can be a bit of a crapshoot. Same goes for Restaurant Depot. Costco can be good for some items, but the selection is limited. There are loads of Farmers' Markets in the summer that are really good. Dill Pickle is also good, although your own garden is always best of all.

#2 is Costco, or Restaurant Depot for some items. If you don't have the space to store large quantities of items then Marianos or Target work well.

In general I'd recommend the following places for the following things:

Costco - Cheeses, milk, butter, lunchmeats, EVOO, vinegars, paper goods, detergents, meats, and random vegetables and fruits.
Whole Foods - Great for produce, decent for baked goods. Awful or too pricey for anything else.
Marianos - Decent for vegetables and fruits, good for flour, frozen foods, and toiletries.
Strack and Van Til - same as Marianos
Binny's - Booze, beer, and wine.
Wine Discount Outlet (AKA Vin Chicago) - Wine, some booze and beers.

Tony's is also very solid if you have one nearby.

[SubconsciousMe]

1. a) Pete's or b) Farmer's market (the one at the nature museum in the winter is pretty good)

2. a) Walmart or b) Costco

Both Pete's and Walmart, we can walk to, so it's a win. In the better weather days, we can walk to Costco too.

[Drover]

IMO Mariano's is the best of the "normal" (not "Whole Foods" type) chains. Very good customer service, good prices on good quality produce, best in-house generic brands (Great Value and Roundy's -- the cereal being a notable exception). Prices on other items are a bit hit-and-miss but if you just want to do a one-stop shop instead of bouncing around getting the cheapest this at one store and the cheapest that at another... Mariano's is our go-to place. But that would be different if there were a Woodman's closer to the city. If you live near North Aurora, northwest Carpentersville, or Kenosha, then you're in luck.

If you're going to do a power produce buy, Fresh Farms on Touhy in Niles has the best produce selection by far, but the prices are all over the place. There's one on Devon too but it's a lot smaller. The various Caputo's come pretty close in produce selection.

[squirrels]

I go to this place near Clark & Fullerton called Big Apple Groceries because it's only half a block away and I can walk there, versus having to drive to Walmart or somewhere and then spend half an hour parking. They're like 50% more expensive than walmart but it's worth the convenience. Plus if I need to get snooty and play hipster I can say I support local business.

[Dport7674]

I always talk sh*t about Jewel, but then I end up going there almost every time I need something. If I was smart enough to use coupons and their customer card I might like going there more.

[Drover]

Jewel ditched their customer card and just started putting stuff on special.

I go to Jewel to get a couple items here or there, but for stock-up shopping we haven't been to Jewel since the Mariano's opened on Elston.

[glass_of_merlot]

Food for less