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Washington DC Area Grocery Stores


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Not exactly in DC, but I shop at Weis. And they have really good selection of everything. Their meats are always fresh & the seafood guy (Dwight) is very good, and steams the shrimp just right. You aren't going to find some specialty stuff, but a decent selection nonetheless. And the stores are always clean.

I have found that most of the Giant stores in my area are filled with less than helpful staff & mediocre selections of meat. My local Safeway has a horrible salad bar; I won't go there for a quick lunch salad again.

Today is going to be one of those days.....

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The Harris Teeter in Pentagon Row isn't bad. I'll go there sometimes too.

Oh, and before I lapsed into treyf eating again, I used to go up to Katz's in Rockville, but that's just too much of a schlep.

Edited by Turtleboy (log)

I let Jsmeeker tell me where to eat in Vegas.

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The Harris Teeter in Pentagon Row isn't bad. I'll go there sometimes too.

Oh, and before I lapsed into treyf eating again, I used to go up to Katz's in Rockville, but that's just too much of a schlep.

If it's any closer, there are a couple of different kosher markets up Georgia Ave in Wheaton interspersed with all the Korean markets.

Kosher kim chee anyone?

If someone writes a book about restaurants and nobody reads it, will it produce a 10 page thread?

Joe W

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The Harris Teeter in Pentagon Row isn't bad.  I'll go there sometimes too.

Oh, and before I lapsed into treyf eating again, I used to go up to Katz's in Rockville, but that's just too much of a schlep.

I second the Harris Teeter.

I think that they have a fairly respectable deli and you can buy wine there.

Also, it is next to World Market which has a great food/wine/coffee selection.

Jennifer
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Turtleboy is right about Publix in FL - great stores, especially the new ones.

I grew up in Sarasota, and I go home and walk up and down the aisles of the new Publix in a daze. The stores are the size of football fields. I end up hauling stuff back in my carry-on that I have a hard time finding up here -- White Lily Flour, Duke's Mayo, Florida sweet onions, a Saffron spice that my mother uses to make Spanish Bean and chorizo soup, good chorizo.... You wouldn't want to sit next to me on the plane!

I go to Harris Teeter when I am visiting friends in Arlington. It is MUCH nicer than my Giant on Arliss Road and I can find some of the items listed above.

I am looking for a butcher that will sell me good bones for stock, a nice bone-in pork roast (that I wanted for Easter dinner and finally gave up on), thick-cut pork chops, good dry-aged beef, etc. Area restaurants have access to these products, so they obviously EXIST but don't seem to make it to the consumer.

I have given up on fresh seafood. I have found that the quick-frozen seafood from Trader Joe's tastes fresher than anything I can get at a seafood counter (the scallops are actually quite good). And most seafood counters are selling defrosted products and passing them off as fresh, anyway. The last time Giant had a good sale on shrimp, I asked the clerk to go into the back and sell me the still frozen shrimp that hadn't been sitting in the seafood case for an unknown amount of time.

Good produce can be obtained at the TPSS Coop and Whole Foods -- this is true. The selection is usually pretty sketchy, though. At this time of year, for example, I would think that I would not have a difficult time finding baby artichokes or nice asparagus. I try to support the TPSS coop, though. They bring a great deal of good to my neighborhood. And I try to make the TP Farmer's market on Sunday. There is a meat vendor0 that sells very good products but you have to get there early or pay in advance and have them hold your order.

My partner of 4 years is a New Yorker who thinks that the Giant on Arliss Road is the greatest thing EVER. I suppose it's all in your perspective.

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I live about a block from the Safeway on Columbia (Spanish Safeway?). Despite the convenience, I limit my grocery list there to toilet paper, sponges, etc. (after too many inedible or disappointing meat and produce experiences). The trek to the P Street Whole Foods is more than worth the drive/walk and crowds.

That said- I recently bought a moldy yogurt from the Reston Whole Foods (opened on the day of purchase).

I heard through a neighbor that there might be a Harris Teeter opening soon in the Kalorama area. Anyone heard of this?

Leaving for the Keys in a few hours, where we get to shop at Publix...

Edited by littlechinagirl (log)
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To paraphrase the esteemed DonRocks, the Produce section at the SS Whole Paycheck sucks ducks, pucks, bucks, and monster trucks.

Their butchers are usually quite helpful and will attempt to fill any request. If you establish a relationship, I'm sure that they would special order for you.

However, for a real butcher you need to go to Eastern Market, or Baltimore.

If someone writes a book about restaurants and nobody reads it, will it produce a 10 page thread?

Joe W

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The old, locally managed, family, Giant was so good virtually nobody would enter the market. The current, managed from Europe via Boston, corporate, Giant is slipping badly. Can you say expanded McGruders - more and larger Safeways - Shopper's - Ukrops - Weiss - Harris Teeter - Wegmans - not to mention the specialty (sort of) places like Super H or Whole (Fresh Fields) Foods or Balducci (Sutton Place). The market is bigger, there are more competitiors, but a slipping Giant (with Safeway trailing) is still the big dog.

Remember Coop, Grand Union, A&P (Super Fresh), and lots of others who couldn't make it in WDC region.

Does anyone besides me find Harris Teeter overpriced and little, if any, better than Giant/Safeway for most items? Wegman's must have something going for it judging by the crowds, but one store far away doesn't interest me much.

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QUOTE (Turtleboy @ Apr 15 2004, 09:31 AM)

The Harris Teeter in Pentagon Row isn't bad. I'll go there sometimes too.

Oh, and before I lapsed into treyf eating again, I used to go up to Katz's in Rockville, but that's just too much of a schlep. 

If it's any closer, there are a couple of different kosher markets up Georgia Ave in Wheaton interspersed with all the Korean markets.

I think the state of cleanliness of kosher markets could be a thread on its own. For some reason there seems to be some unstated rule that kosher markets must be cramped and dingy. Still, sometimes one just needs to go. Although, I gotta say that I think the KosherMart is slightly improved in cleaniless (certainly over Shalom's kosher in Wheaton).

As for other grocery stores, I was fascinated to learn that Brookville, the now independent grocery in Cleveland Park used to referred to as the "Soviet Safeway". While I find that Brookville can be a little pricier than your standard Giant/Safeway, and I can't always find everything I need, for a neighbourhood store I really like them. I can find pretty much all basic grocery staple needs, their produce isn't too bad, and while I don't use their meat counter, I often see many people using it. I know that the (not-so new anymore) butcher Pam? Pat? is very friendly and seems interested in knowing what her customers are looking for or would like to see more of (ergo, the larger kosher meat selection). The other great thing about Brookville... they will deliver.

I still find that I will hit a Giant/Secret Safeway, Whole Foods, Dupont Farmers Market, and Magruders on a regular basis, with an occasional Weggies trip thrown in to meet my shopping needs. oy, i'm exhausted. :biggrin:

:biggrin:

Debbie S. aka "ozgirl"

Squirrel: "Darn nuts! How I long for a grapefruit." - Eddie Izzard

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I don't know which Safeway first earned the term (the old 7th St. Safeway on Capitol Hill was pretty grim, too), but Cleveland Park certainly seemed the most deserving of it.

PS. Has anyone ever gotten a date in the "Social Safeway?"

The 7th st. Safeway is the UnSafeway.

Busboy, which quadrent was the 9th & G in? I know I could look at a map, but I am at work and too lazy :wink: I know it's not SE, 'cause that's the block I grew up on.

The Soviet Safeway I was remember was on 17th, I think. They called it that because the selection was so lousy.

Anyone remembe Weisfelds on the Hill (I am sure I am spelling it worng)? On 5th, across from Turtle Park. He was a great butcher.

Best part about working in Rockville is the food shopping selection. Between Trader Joes, Lotte and Katz I can do pretty well.

True Heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic.

It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost,

but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. -Arthur Ashe

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Busboy, which quadrent was the 9th & G in? I know I could look at a map, but I am at work and too lazy :wink: I know it's not SE, 'cause that's the block I grew up on.

Anyone remembe Weisfelds on the Hill (I am sure I am spelling it worng)? On 5th, across from Turtle Park. He was a great butcher.

I'm unsure of the exact location of that Safeway -- the whole block has been long torn down and rebuilt, but it was in NW, near Metro Center. It may even have been as far west as 13th St.

Weisfeld's was great. I used to pick up meat there for special occasions when I was working on the Hill for my first campaign. Never knew that was called Turtle Park, though.

The UnSafeway. I love it.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Never knew that was called Turtle Park, though.

The UnSafeway. I love it.

I am sure the park has some official name, but that's what we always called it :smile:

True Heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic.

It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost,

but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. -Arthur Ashe

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Does anyone besides me find Harris Teeter overpriced and little, if any, better than Giant/Safeway for most items? Wegman's must have something going for it judging by the crowds, but one store far away doesn't interest me much.

I'll second that. What I noticed most when I started shopping at Harris Teeter was the staff, they look you in the eye and speak directly to you. I was so used to the "wall of distrust" at Safeway and Giant it took me a couple of times to get used to it.

But I don't find Harris Teeter to be that much different or even quite as good as from Whole Foods, either, another overpriced place. Both stores have the attitude of thinking a lot of themselves, if that makes sense...no, it doesn't. But they ARE usually pretty clean.

Safeway, Giant: Pretty much the desperation destination. I haven't had the "rotten food" experiences recounted by others but I have either been A). really lucky or B). looked at everything over and over before I put it in basket--so, cheap or compulsive. Or with trust issues.

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I live in Foggy Bottom. The Watergate Safeway is the store closest to me. I have been shopping there weekly for almost 20 years. No one in the store knows my name. I know their names. They tell me "haven't seen you in a while". Shit! I was here yesterday! I have pulled products off the shelves that have been 2 months out of date. A splurge day for me is cabbing over to the Whole Foods store on P St. Who cares what the stuff costs? It looks and mostly tastes good.

Mark

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I live in Foggy Bottom. The Watergate Safeway is the store closest to me. I have been shopping there weekly for almost 20 years. No one in the store knows my name. I know their names. They tell me "haven't seen you in a while". Shit! I was here yesterday! I have pulled products off the shelves that have been 2 months out of date. A splurge day for me is cabbing over to the Whole Foods store on P St. Who cares what the stuff costs? It looks and mostly tastes good.

Ah, the Bob Dole Safeway.

I used to live in Foggy bottom and shopped there once or twice. But I had a car, and I would drive out to Virginia, or the Social Safeway rather than shop there.

I let Jsmeeker tell me where to eat in Vegas.

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Add me to the group that doesn't think the grocery stores here suck too bad. I live in Arlington and shop at the Shopper's Food Warehouse in Potomac Yard for most things, the Harris Teeter Pentagon Row for meats and Slavin and Sons for seafood. I am currently in exile in south Georgia and had to go to four different stores to get the ingredients for Thai curry. Now that sucks!

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I live in Foggy Bottom. The Watergate Safeway is the store closest to me. I have been shopping there weekly for almost 20 years. No one in the store knows my name. I know their names. They tell me "haven't seen you in a while". Shit! I was here yesterday! I have pulled products off the shelves that have been 2 months out of date. A splurge day for me is cabbing over to the Whole Foods store on P St. Who cares what the stuff costs? It looks and mostly tastes good.

Ah, the Bob Dole Safeway.

I used to live in Foggy bottom and shopped there once or twice. But I had a car, and I would drive out to Virginia, or the Social Safeway rather than shop there.

Haven't shopped there in years -- since my undergraduate days at GW -- but I will always like the place because one afternoon I turned the corner and saw Julia Child doing a little marketing there.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Safeway is the pits of the World. I live on the Hill and go to a Safeway that I affectionately dubbed the Saigon Safeway during the more dangerous years. It's in a rapidly gentrifying, but it still sux. The have an entire wall of broken shopping carts and check out girls that are usually chatting with each other or on the phone while they S L O W L Y ring up your order. I have basically transferred all of my business to Harris Teeter on Pentagon Row. I was hitting the newer Brentwood Giant (near to the Home Depot, so I can kill two birds with one stone), which is pretty good and cheaper than Safeway, but the 9th street bridge up there is now out and will be for the next two months.

For really cheap, you can't beat the Shoppers Food Warehouse in Alexandria Potomac Yards. Then again, you have to bag your own groceries there. But they have a decent selection of ethnic foods, altho their meat is atrocious.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

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You think they suck here? I'll tell you about a place where the grocery stores suck, and I mean they suck like two buck chuck, they suck like a mangy duck, and they suck like a slapshot to the eyeball with a hockey puck.

I went to visit family in Salisbury MD over the weekend, and I made the mistake of stopping at Food Lion to pick up stuff to make kebabs. Lousy kebabs. I knew my pickins would be slim in Salisbury (I spent way too much time living there a few years ago), so I set my sights as low as possible. What do I need? Hmmm, a hunk of some kinda meat and a few grillable veggies-- should have been a piece of cake.

Button mushrooms? slimy and brown.

Zucchini? looked like they had been gummed by geriatric dogs.

Bell Peppers? these typically come in green, yellow, red, maybe orange, right? I don't know how to characterize the color I saw there. Maybe "putrid purple"?

Cherry Tomatoes? packaged in a gauzy sack with some sort of furry white mold developing at the bottom.

Meat? There was one decent looking hunk of pork butt that I ended up cutting into cubes for dinner. But tell me why, why in the world there were what appeared to be good looking NY strips and ribeyes that had been butchered (and I do mean BUTCHERED) into steaks that were less than 1/4 inch thick?

Count your blessings... :hmmm:

peak performance is predicated on proper pan preparation...

-- A.B.

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You think they suck here? I'll tell you about a place where the grocery stores suck, and I mean they suck like two buck chuck, they suck like a mangy duck, and they suck like a slapshot to the eyeball with a hockey puck.

That place sounds like it might also suck the proverbial "ventworm nut" as well.

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Meat? There was one decent looking hunk of pork butt that I ended up cutting into cubes for dinner. But tell me why, why in the world there were what appeared to be good looking NY strips and ribeyes that had been butchered (and I do mean BUTCHERED) into steaks that were less than 1/4 inch thick?

Count your blessings... :hmmm:

I assume they were cut that way so that the locals could make Salisbury Steak. :laugh:

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Soviet Sodomy Safeway here (although I've never heard it referred to as either of those; maybe I just haven't been paying attention).

Ages ago I lived around the corner on Q Street and the neighbors called it "Dangerway" because - as legend had it - this was the only Safeway in the chain that had ever been closed by the inspector for health violations. Then we moved to Logan Circle and shopped at the Spanish market which made us long for Dangerway (although they always had the most amazing fresh cilantro and yucca).

Now I live in Montgomery County (another urban pioneer bites the dust) and give my money to Whole Paycheck.

"Food is an essential part of a balanced diet."

Fran Lebowitz

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From bizjournals.com

Stocked market

Safeway makes a play to beat local competition with $50M spending spree

Ben Hammer

Staff Reporter

Safeway is shopping for market share.

The supermarket chain is about to invest more than $50 million in new and existing D.C.-area stores, all headed in a decidedly more upscale direction amid a recent uptick in competition from the deluxe likes of Wegmans and Whole Foods Market....

The new Safeway stores feature an imported-cheese bar, expanded deli offerings, the Rancher's Reserve premium cut of meats, a produce department with new organic items, an olive bar and prepared foods. Wood-grain floors complete the step-above feel.

Which brings to mind a game - anyone else want to add to the list, fun names for DC Safeways? These are the ones I've picked up over the years -

Georgetown: Social Safeway

17th and Q: Soviet Safeway

Columbia Road: Slumway

Oh poor DC. Go Wegmans go ...

Emily Kaiser

www.emilykaiser.com

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Wood floors get just as dirty as tile and I always feel like Safeway is dingy - even the new ones.

We had an ongoing thread over the last few weeks that evolved into a discussion of the various safeways here.

Bill Russell

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