Wegmans Opens in Northern Virginia

[Malawry]

I got the magazine and coupon.

Anybody know what time they open Sunday? I'm reconsidering my initial plan to arrive in the afternoon. Also who else is going, if anybody?

[bilrus]

I am planning on going, probably fairly early. I'm jumping in with both feet and will probably do my weekly shopping - provided the crowds aren't overwhelming.

[Malawry]

Bill, if you want company, I'll gladly provide it. I'm considering dragging my ass out there by midmorning to beat the crowds. I hope to stock up on some produce, fish and FREE DIPPING OIL.

[mnebergall]

Did you also get the coupon for the free Wegman's flavored oil?

what does a wegman taste like?

It's Wegman's flavored oil, not Wegman flavored oil. The difference in meaning is that in the first, Wegman is the person doing the flavoring, in the second Wegman is the flavor.

[hannnah]

We're going early as well (9ish), and have left room in the fridge for our weekly shop.

[doctoro]

Oh my God, I don't know what is getting more hype Wegman's

or the new Mel Gibson movie! I am curious, is Wegman's a publically traded

company on the exchange? If so I can't believe they go for all of these extra

touches. But I live in No.Va. and it will be interesting to see if they live up to

the expectations of our loyal egulleteers. I think I'll have to drive over there

and check this place out. I am salivating just thinking about what kind of blue cheese I am going to have with my pears!

Cheers!

The Doctor Is Out!

Edited February 27, 2004 by doctoro (log)

[morela]

Wow! This place is popular. It's catching up with Nectar's 7168 views...

and the Nectar thread was started much earlier.

I have no attention span and a neglected day job, so I have never read this stuff...

[JPW]

I am curious, is Wegman's a publically traded

company on the exchange?

No it isn't, it is still largely owned by the Wegman family.

[PoorLawyer]

Did you also get the coupon for the free Wegman's flavored oil?

what does a wegman taste like?

It's Wegman's flavored oil, not Wegman flavored oil. The difference in meaning is that in the first, Wegman is the person doing the flavoring, in the second Wegman is the flavor.

Wow. Silly me, I was just going to let the bad joke slide. Thanks for backing me up with a strong case of English 101 whoopass.

[Al_Dente]

Did you also get the coupon for the free Wegman's flavored oil?

what does a wegman taste like?

It's Wegman's flavored oil, not Wegman flavored oil. The difference in meaning is that in the first, Wegman is the person doing the flavoring, in the second Wegman is the flavor.

Wow. Silly me, I was just going to let the bad joke slide. Thanks for backing me up with a strong case of English 101 whoopass.

Does Wegman's sell cans of whoopass?

[PoorLawyer]

If they don't, then it doesn't exist.

[mikec5426]

I just left my tour of the new Wegmans store. Being a Rochester native and former Wegmans employee I have seen many, many stores.

The Dulles store is absolutely AMAZING!!!! From Corian counters at the express check outs, the wine selection is the best in the DC area and the incredible layout!!!!

The prices on everything were very competitive and their grocery area puts Giant, Safeway to SHAME! You can easily save 20% on your regular grocery shopping at Wegmans.

See everyone Sunday!!

Mike

Leesburg, VA

[bilrus]

Bill, if you want company, I'll gladly provide it. I'm considering dragging my ass out there by midmorning to beat the crowds. I hope to stock up on some produce, fish and FREE DIPPING OIL.

Unfortunately, I am kinda "on-call" at work this weekend so I don't know when and if I will need to be in the office or when I am going to be able to go to the store.

[mnebergall]

Did you also get the coupon for the free Wegman's flavored oil?

what does a wegman taste like?

It's Wegman's flavored oil, not Wegman flavored oil. The difference in meaning is that in the first, Wegman is the person doing the flavoring, in the second Wegman is the flavor.

Wow. Silly me, I was just going to let the bad joke slide. Thanks for backing me up with a strong case of English 101 whoopass.

Does Wegman's sell cans of whoopass?

It's "whoop ass" or "whoop-ass" not whoopass. Gosh, a guy can't have a little fun around here without getting his ass whooped.

[hillvalley]

Bill, if you want company, I'll gladly provide it. I'm considering dragging my ass out there by midmorning to beat the crowds. I hope to stock up on some produce, fish and FREE DIPPING OIL.

Do you know what time they open? I am hesitant to go because of the crowds.

On the other hand this waiting is a bit like the days before Hannukah as a kid. You know there are wonderful things about to come into your possession, if you can only wait!

[Malawry]

They open at 7a tomorrow.

I'm bad at waiting.

[jparrott]

Just got back from the new Wegman's...if you're familiar with the Princeton store, it's very familiar, with the addition of a wine shop (decent) in the middle. Good prices on some high-end wines (Beringer PR for <$80, etc).

It's everything you'd expect from a Wegman's. They have four levels of beef--Sunnyside's "Virginia Kobe" (everything but the Hanger-drat), dry-aged prime (nothing bone-in, picked up a ribeye to try tonight), prime and choice (better prices than Giant). Full d'Artagnan line, except the raw foie gras. Fresh ham, veal shoulder, sweetbreads, quail. Decent cookery products section (though I didn't find the bench scraper I want). Yellowfoots, bluefoots, porcini (kinda dry), black truffles (only $500/lb, so probably not Perigord). Spiegelau basic stems for $7 each. Not that many extra specials--Dominion Winter Brew was $5/6pk (and the brewery is now out of it), but a lot of things at less than Giant regular prices.

There were 400 people lined up at 6:45 am. By the time we left, at 8:15, overflow parking spilled out into the streets around the store.

It's a great store. And it's a mob-and-a-half right now.

[Steve Klc]

We arrived at 8AM--and by then the parking lot was completely full. The lot can probably accomodate about as many cars as the West Ox Rd. Costco. We were lucky to find a space on an access road. Pity the poor people arriving at 9 or 10AM. Though perhaps they received more samples than we did--we got zilch, zip, nada save for a little bag of (albeit good) potato chips. A big disappointment, seeing as when we were at the opening of the Woodbridge Wegmans they were handing out copious samples of the wonderful Herme chocolates and the wonderful Herme pastries and other stuff all over the store. I suspect they might not have kicked the sample thing into high gear yet--we only ran into some sauteed banana oatmeal thing at one demo station and some buckwheat pancake berry thing at another. We also bought a French toast bagel that was...not...something I'd recommend.

We overheard a customer ask a very nice Herme counter clerk who Pierre Herme was and she replied "he's a French chef who's pretty famous in France." Fortunately for us, his simple and clean line delivers just as it did when the Princeton store opened years ago: we finally have worthwhile pastry shop pastry and chocolates that taste as good, as refined, as they look. No more need to suffer through the Pastries by Whole Foods, Heidelbergs and Randolphs in our area.

Jake--agreed about your comparison to the NJ stores. I'm glad we at least got a real Wegmans and not a pretend Wegmans. The major differences are cosmetic.

I too was struck how they integrated wine more invitingly into the middle of the store, as you pointed out. I bet that will help sales. I also liked the (new to this Wegmans shopper anyway) higher end wine "store within a store" area they set up--which can be roped off for tastings and where access can be controlled better. (Though I found it easier to actually shop for wine in the Princeton wine store--which for those of you who haven't ever been is in a separate, self-contained area with their own checkout lines.) Beer is oddly cast off to a far corner almost as the forgotten stepchild. Another improvement layout-wise over the Princeton and Woodbridge stores is that the houseware/kitchenware collection is in the middle of this store--so it's more integrated. It won't make anyone forget Sur La Table but it's not supposed to. The frozen aisles are in the middle of the store and more integrated. (In NJ, the freezer cases are stuck in a back corner and you have to make a special effort to go into the houseware section for those Spiegelau or Riedel glasses or the Francis Francis! espresso machines--in Sterling you have no choice but to walk by them and through them. No, the exclamation point was not my idea.)

They also have a "Whole Foods Market/Fresh Fields"-style mini store within a store right smack in the middle as well--as if to say "there's no reason to go back to Whole Foods again"--where all the organic/ certified/ feel-good crunchy stuff is corraled, if that is important to you, so be it organic milk, butter, flour, coffee, ice cream, whatever, it can be easily found in one place. (Pity Whole Foods and Sutton, they're the big losers in this with the arrival of Wegmans, not Giant or Safeway.)

All the Wegmans characteristically excellent, deep and fairly priced meat, game, fish, sushi, Herme-consulted pastry & chocolate, cheese, deli, produce, charcuterie, prepared and ready-to-cook foods, and are exactly the same here as in Woodbridge or Princeton NJ. Similar as well is the "just pretty good" bread, the just fairly average coffee and bulk/bar chocolate selection and the fairly crappy line of American-style bakery goods with garish icing and airy fluff. Other negative perceptions:

The produce section is definitely smaller than in Princeton/Woodbridge--it feels much more constrained because it is (wine encroaches, no doubt) and there's slightly less produce variety overall. Our initial impression also was that less shelf space was devoted to what in other stores are long, deep aisles of "International or gourmet" products--the dry, bottled and bagged goods, usually grouped by ethnicity or country. But we didn't spend enough time in these ethnic sections to really get an accurate sense. It just seemed smaller--as if Wegmans already knew this store's target market wouldn't necessarily be looking for all those products here. That that wouldn't be where this store was going to make its money. No tandoor here as in Woodbridge--but no surprise, either. A final thought--I read somewhere that the square footage of this store is right up there with the largest stores; however, I can't help feeling this store is smaller--I wonder if more square footage has been allocated to behind the scenes prep, storage and receiving acitivity?

I looked for irradiated ground beef and didn't see any--so I asked. I always liked the fact that Wegmans didn't preach to its customers like Whole Foods took every opportunity to--you had organic ground beef, regular ground beef and irradiated ground beef side by side. The reply I got was that no Wegmans has irradiated ground beef anymore because their supplier--Surebeam--went out of business recently. I missed that in the news. The meat guy said that Wegmans corporate was looking into buying that equipment and doing it themselves. I found that interesting.

It is tighter near the checkout lines as Margaret Webb Pressler first observed--in other NJ Wegmans there is at least the appearance of more space between the aisles and the checkouts--to avoid that, avoid the front of the store, work your way all the way back to the prepared foods section entrance--there are two cash registers set up for buying a quick takeaway meal--that you can also bring full shopping carts through. You'll get out of the store much faster.

[doctoro]

This Wegman's thread is very informative and entertaining at the sametime.

I can't believe it is not even noon and we have two posts already.

Reviews of the store. I haven't seen this kind of following since Jerry Garcia died.

BTW, do they have Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia? Do Wegman's groupies travel accross the country selling T Shirts and sampling black truffles at the sametime? I think the Black truffle afficionados will have to drive a ways to buy them here. Because as discussed in the Dulles Corridor thread, the epicurious

culinaires are few far and between in this area. People pumping out babies and buying inflated priced homes, rarely have time to prepare anything with black truffles. Maybe I'll start my own Nanny business and require all nanny's to be

graduates from the C I A, so they can prepare meals with all of the specialty gourmet items that Wegman's offers, like the missed irradiated ground beef, don't want the little ones to miss out. Well I don't have kids and I like to cook and look forward a nice cut of beef, and a decent beefsteak tomato this spring.

I hope all goes well with this Wegman's, I'll be there when the crowds die down.

[jparrott]

(Though I found it easier to actually shop for wine in the Princeton wine store--which for those of you who haven't ever been is in a separate, self-contained area with their own checkout lines.)

It has to be--NJ state law.

[DonRocks]

Rumor has it that the meat counter is shoved in a corner.

But it sounds to me like the real meat counter was the guy sitting at the front door, clicking off the customers that came into the store this morning.

Heading to the antipodes,

Rocks.

[jparrott]

Rumor has it that the meat counter is shoved in a corner.

But it sounds to me like the real meat counter was the guy sitting at the front door, clicking off the customers that came into the store this morning.

Heading to the antipodes,

Rocks.

Har.

[hannnah]

We got there at 9, and it took 2 hours to get all the way through the store. It's a complete zoo today, but it's worth it. The breads and pastries are mostly excellent (and they were in full sampling swing by 9), although the bagels are pretty much round bread product rather than true bagels - too soft, and they hadn't been boiled. The deli area is well stocked and ruthlessly efficient. The meats counter was the best I've seen in a U.S. supermarket - they had more than one nice fresh non-shrink-wrapped leg of lamb! We didn't even have a chance to pummel our way down to the beef end, but from the glimpses I could catch I'm looking forward to a return trip. The cheeses...aaahh. Great selection, treated properly rather than put in airtight saran and forgotten about.

We skipped over most of the wine section, but they had a nice variety of Virginia wines. Then we got to the produce - wow. Really nice fruit, including some funky looking but good heirloom tangerines; nice varied range of vegetables; a bin of black truffles (under lock and key).

Even the regular grocery sections are good - how many times do you see 4 different brands of molasses? Safeway and Giant are generally doing well if they have 1. Their "international" section even has British food, and a reasonably good selection of it. Mushy peas, HP sauce, salad cream - nice range of staples that are twice or three times the price at the dedicated specialty stores.

There are plenty of areas we didn't really get to because of the crowds - their prepared food/cafe area looked and smelled good from a distance, and we didn't really need anything from the pharmacy. I look forward to going back in a week or so once the craziness has died down, for a nice leisurely trip up and down the aisles.

Overall, I think the other supermarkets in the area should be worried - especially once the Fairfax branch opens. Wegman's really is as good as its press.

[mikec5426]

I arrived around 8am as well and left about noon!! Luckily I had some 'insider' information on some of the times things would be handed out.

They indeed started sampling Herme chocolate I believe around 11am. There were tons of samples througout the morning and late morning. Bags of veggie chips, Wegmans cookies, chocolate covered soy nuts, pineapple and an incredible fruit I have never tried until today called Uniq fruit which she said was a combination of grapefruit and tangerine.

I was in the first group to sample the Dom Perignon and share the first toast with the Moët et Chandon representative that was there to discuss their line as well as Mr. Danny Wegman who looked on. I also purchased two boxes which included a 1995 bottle and two crystal flutes for $95 each which is priced for Grand Opening Day only. One is a wedding gift and one of course is for me. :-) The Vineyard section which has the more pricey wines (up to $1,800 per bottle) had an incredible selection including a Chateau Margeaux and Ice wine (from Canada) at $40-$65 per bottle.

DOCTORO- haha yes there were ACTUALLY Wegmans "groupies" there!!! I heard them being interviewed and photographed by WTOP and I believe the Washington Post. They all had red sweaters and stitched on a big black "W" on there sweaters. Apparently they go to all of the openings.

Police were directing traffic by noon and Route 28 was jam packed with traffic. The parking lots at the Ashburn Food Lion and Giant were a grave yard on my drive back to Leesburg. People were parked in all lots including CarMax, Burger King, the Nissan dealership and all along the roads.

I bought some bakery items, a bagel (which was water boiled), muffin and a sub sandwich in addition to the champagne. I will do full grocery shopping later in the week in the late evening *hopefully to avoid the crowds*.

Overall, I am VERY impressed. I overhead a lot of conversations including a group of Giant employees. And everyone seemed to be in agreement that this was the new place to shop. As for the Giant employees they joked and called themselves "traitors" and wanted some applications!

Good luck to everyone going this week and enjoy the store. Even if you live far away its a nice weekend day trip for lunch and grocery shopping.

Mike

Leesburg, VA

[bilrus]

Add me to the thousands who were there this morning. I would echo a lot of what has already been posted. The produce was what blew me away. five or six types of pears, 10 or 12 types of mushrooms.

The one thing that stood out to me that no one has mentioned was that it seemed a little disorganized. In most strores there seems to be a set path that most people take through the store and most people go up one aisle and down the other. Granted this was the first time any of us have been there, and there were more shoppers than you will ever see there again, but in many spots you would see cats going in six different directions.

If you are going today, one word of advice - go to the frozen foods last, even though it is in the middle of the store. Our gelato was liquified by the time we made it to the checkout.

Its Giant without some of the nasty stuff, plus a whole foods and a Sutton Place without the expensive stuff. Pretty good combination. But I will be going at 11 on a Friday night for the time being.