Bargain bonanza
Don’t expect an upscale shopping experience.
There’s no latte bar here. No one will offer you a tiny food sample on a pretty cocktail napkin. And in some cases, you’ll find bare concrete floors and ceilings snaked with exposed pipes.
But bargains? If you’re looking for deals, these are the places to go.
There’s a whole universe of bargain-basement food shopping in the Inland Northwest. If you’re not in the know, you’ve likely driven right past them on the way to Albertsons or Safeway or Yoke’s or wherever you go.
There’s the Grocery Outlet. And Smart Foodservice Cash & Carry. And URM Cash & Carry.
If you’re looking for unusual items, bulk foods or just want to save a bundle, these places are worth checking out. And you don’t even need a membership card.
“You just never know what you’re going to find and when you’ll find it again,” says Tracy Hunter, a regular Grocery Outlet shopper who owns Just American Desserts. “It’s just so much fun, especially when you’re a foodie.”
The cash and carry stores (don’t worry, they take credit cards, too) cater largely to businesses, with deals on 50-pound bags of onions and massive boxes of pancake mix. It’s easier to find a giant flat-bed dolly there than a standard shopping cart. And you can also find all sorts of other restaurant goodies (many of which would be useful to the home cook as well) at these stores. There are all sorts of packaging, wraps and foils, along with kitchen gadgets and small appliances.
The Grocery Outlets are different and look more like traditional grocery stores (in fact, the north Spokane location just moved into an old Albertsons building on Division last week). At the Grocery Outlets, shoppers can find steals on overstocks, products that have changed labels, or foods with foreign packaging.
And while the stores may stock things with a freshness date that’s fast approaching, you’re not likely to find anything past its prime, says Mike Clancy, who owns the two Grocery Outlets in Spokane.
“We don’t sell any yucks,” Clancy says.
URM is a grocery wholesaler, and also the parent company of Rosauers, Pierone Produce and the URM Cash & Carry stores. (URM is also part owner of Yoke’s). The Cash & Carry stores began as a way to tide over food-service businesses in between deliveries, says Dean Sonnenberg, CEO of URM.
The company doesn’t go out of its way to promote the stores to the public, focusing instead on retail clients.
“We don’t make a huge deal out of it,” Sonnenberg says.
The two Smart Foodservice Cash & Carry stores in Spokane are owned by Los Angeles-based Smart & Final Inc.
Here’s the thing, though, about this kind of grocery shopping:
Don’t expect to be able to make a list and check off the same staples each week. Not even close.
“They like the thrill of the hunt,” Jon Wylie, vice president of marketing for Grocery Outlet, says of his stores’ customers.
Wylie says he gets a kick out of seeing shoppers get on their cell phones to call friends and relatives about a good bargain. Some people will buy a bottle of $2.99 wine, rush home to sample it, and buy it by the case if it’s a good one, he says.
Hunter, who sometimes goes to the Grocery Outlet twice a week, has found great deals on cheese, salad greens and wine, she says.
She also likes being able to sample different foods – such as gourmet sausages or collard greens – without committing to the hefty price tag of a traditional grocery store.
“You can try all this stuff and not feel guilty,” she says.
Here are some of the good buys we found on a recent bargain-shopping trip:
• Rows and rows of flavored Torani coffee syrups at URM for $3.29, at least a couple bucks off retail prices
• A $1.79 bag of Mother’s frosted animal cookies at Grocery Outlet, compared to about $3 at a traditional store
• A $4.99 bottle of merlot at Grocery Outlet that usually retails for $10.99
• A 24-pack of boxes of Lemonheads candy on sale at Cash & Carry for $1.98, about four times less than at the grocery store
• Two packages of Boursin, a gourmet cheese spread, for $1.99 at Grocery Outlet, a savings of more than $11 off regular prices.
And there were plenty of bargains on meats and produce and canned goods, too.
“It’s just so much fun,” Hunter says. “I shop there before I go to the regular grocery store.”