Made my first trip to our new Fresh & Easy grocery store. I am fairly impressed (although Albertson’s is still my favorite grocery store). I had a coupon and got another at the store, so I ended up saving $12, making my total purchase of 4 big bags of food only $54, score! so here are the things I found interesting:
– Way more brand name stuff than Henry’s, but not all the brand names you might want.
– Tons and tons of pre-made foods, made in house I think.
– Sampled the Tomato Basil Soup, lovely!
– Some sale prices are outrageously good…Lean Cuisines for $1.50
– Not a ton of fancy cheeses, to which I am partial.
– Produce is all pre-packaged, boo. Sometimes I just want 1 apple.
– Produce selection was a bit scant.
– Bakery section was a bit small.
– All self-checkout, good and bad.
– Good: I was able to do it all and pay without help.
– Bad: Bagging my own groceries and trying to get out of the way for the next guy.
– Also Bad:Left my pancake mix behind because I was trying to get out of the way.
All in all, cheaper than Ralph’s or Henry’s overall, better selection on most items than Henry’s, produce is the real loser here. I will be going back, but I am still not sure that this will be my regular grocery store.
Anyone else have input?
4 responses to “Fresh & Easy”
better/worse than trader joe’s? i can normally get my 1 to 1.5 weeks of vegan groceries at tj’s for $50-$60
Trader Joes would probably be better for vegan fare. This was more like a mini version of Albertsons (lower prices and name brand stuff). Comparable in price to Trader Joes, but probably not the best selection for you, esp. produce.
I LOVE Fresh and Easy . . . because it is just that. Fresh food that is really easy to cook. I like that I don’t get penalized for having a smaller family. If you buy a block of cheese at Albertsons you have to leave you first born child there to pay for it (which is not a bad thing some days). But at Fresh and Easy the small medium and large sizes are all about the same unit price. They are opening one an exit away from my house next month 🙂
Pretty lame that I am commenting weeks after you posted. Not a lot of time for blogs lately.
Anyway, I wanted to say that I do love Fresh & Easy, but not as a grocery store per say…more like a quick convenience store on days when you have nothing for dinner, or maybe you are out of bread and milk. I love there prepared food items, like the fajitas, because it's just enough meat for Steve and I and it's all marinaded and chopped and it didn't come from a drive-thru window.
I also recommend the pizza dough 😉