I was happy when the Grocery Outlet opened on Hickey last year,
because I'd heard such good things about it both here and on FB.
Unfortunately, they are all individually owned franchises and one
isn't necessarily like another... so you can only imagine my
disappointment when I realized what a cruddy store the one and only
one within a somewhat reasonable distance to me is.

Today, we went across the Bay to Fremont/Newark (to watch our GS's
basketball game) and chatting with DIL - I found out there was a great
Grocery Outlet near her. She said they had organic olive oil and lots
of other good finds scattered around the store at a good price. It
happened to be on our way home, so we stopped in to take a look and
walked out with $40 worth of groceries. We did the perimeter first.
The first great find was avocados at 2 for $1 and they weren't tiny.
Over in the meat case, we found bacon in full pound packages... Oscar
Mayer was $2.99 and a no name (but meaty) for $1.99. The bread
section had our favorite cracked wheat sourdough bread (same brand,
same everything) that we usually buy at Trader Joe's. We needed
bread, so we bought it there. Moving on, the candy section was to die
for. It had our favorite junk at a good price, so we walked away with
Nestle's Crunch and orange jellies coated in dark chocolate (which are
fresh and delicious). There were classier chocolates around the
corner, like 85% Lindt, but we had enough. Going up and down the
interior aisles, I found a product I hadn't heard of until last week
called Shellie Beans (I guess it's an East Coast thing), which are
canned green beans and canned pinto beans mixed together in one can...
so I thought "what the heck" and bought one. I'll figure out what to
do with them later.

The checkers are cheery and the store has various incentives for
customers - drawings twice a month where the customer and the person
who checked them out get a gift cart of $100 and if your purchase is
$75 or more, there's a wheel to spin and if you win, you get $30 off
your bill. Obviously, I like that store! We'll be sure to return
when we're over there. It's clean, easy to maneuver around and I felt
like I was on a treasure hunt!

That's a grand total of two that I've been in. Are most Grocery
Outlets like that one or is the other more typical?

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Food is an important part of a balanced diet.