Groceries in 60646 and nearby?

After three years living in Elmwood Park, and watching the overall grocery bill seem to go down every passing week as I came to rely on Caputo's more and more (and Dominicks/Jewel less and less) for everything from produce to meat to the deli to bread to milk/eggs to gelato to YoFarm yogurt (the best!) to local frozen pizza to ... well, you get it. .... I am moving to the north-by-northwest side of the city.

I know there are several places near to the new 'hood that can fill *some* of the needs that Caputo's did at similar prices. (H-Mart, Jerry's etc.) ... But is there one grocery store within 3-5 miles of Central/Devon that fits a similar price-quality model as Caputo's? (Doesn't necessarily have to be as "Italian") Otherwise I might as well change my shopping schedule and go back to the old 'hood once or twice a month.

Thanks!

Now, I've never been to Caputo's, so I'm guessing these options are comparable, esp. if you're looking predominately for produce - they're close by and worth checking out, at any rate:

Marketplace On Oakton
4817 Oakton St, Skokie, IL
(847) 677-1094

Patel Bros
2542 W Devon Ave, Chicago, IL
(773) 764-1857

Lincolnwood Produce & Grocery
7175 N Lincoln Ave, Lincolnwood, IL
(847) 329-0600

Jerry's Fruit & Garden Center Inc
7901 N Milwaukee Ave, Niles, IL
(847) 967-1440

Happy Foods Inc
4616 Oakton St, Skokie, IL
(847) 679-1661

(IMHO, H-Mart has excellent produce as well, and good meats and is well worth a visit. Packaged foods are where they are skewed more Asian)

That's a pretty good list that Mhays provided. I live in that area and do 99% of my shopping at Lincolnwood Produce, which is a remarkable store for the breadth of ethnic stuff it carries as well as the produce prices. The rest I get at Whole Foods (meat & fish, primarily) or some other ethnic market for specific things.

A little further South of you but worth the drive imo:
A & G Market
5630 W Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60634
(773) 777-4480
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - best grocery store in Chicago!

stevez wrote:Whole Foods

There goes my grocery bill.

I think I have the produce covered in one direction or the other: Jerry's/Hmart to the northwest or Lincolnwood to the east (been there once, and I think it covers a lot of the same ethnicities as Caputo's, but I can't recall if it had a deli).

Yup, we get a lot of our stuff from the places Michelle named, particularly produce at Marketplace on Oakton. Marketplace on Oakton has a nice assortment of breads, and they carry the excellent whole wheat bread from D'Amatos, although they're often sold out of it by mid-afternoon. They have a pretty good deli department, too, including Boar's Head meat products. (FWIW, every time we've compared quality and price of their produce against Lincolnwood Produce, Marketplace on Oakton always comes out ahead on price, and usually on quality too.)

Some things, we get at Costco or Sam's Club, which usually (not always, but usually) have excellent prices, and sometimes have surprisingly good quality for fresh goods you wouldn't necessarily expect, like meats and even fresh fish or produce. As well as packaged goods, of course.

Chicago Style™ wrote:but I can't recall if it had a deli).

Yes, Lincolnwood Produce does have a deli, weighted toward Central and Eastern Europe.

Marketplace on Oakton also has a reasonable deli, and is right down the street from the Eurostyle Deli (very Eastern European) as well - and has an Aldi next door. It is my favorite place to grocery-shop.

Another Deli/produce/butcher shop nearby that I like is the City Fresh Market on Devon - light on produce, but heavy in the other two areas.

City Fresh Market
3201 W Devon Ave
Chicago, IL 60659
(773) 681-8600

Cool ... I will definitely check out Marketplace on Oakton in addition to the others I already had on the list. That's a new one on me. Ultimately, I find that one of the best way to keep the grocery bill down is to limit the number of stores that I "frequent" (i.e., go to every week). Hopefully I can find a suitable go-to grocery store. And supplement with only occasional visits to the other great places that I am looking forward to -- from Costco to Hmart to Schmeisser's on Milwaukee.

One more tip about Marketplace on Oakton. Their roll-around shopping carts have a device that requires a quarter (25 cents) to remove it from the rack. When you're done shopping, you can put it back in the rack and when you do, you can remove your quarter deposit back from the cart.

It's common for shoppers in the parking lot, after loading up their car, to offer the shopping cart to someone headed back to the store, in which case they are expecting you to give them a quarter for it. This saves them having to walk all the way back to the store to return it.

If you aren't buying that much stuff and a hand-carried shopping basket is sufficient for you, they have those, too, no deposit required (but you'll be carrying your bags of groceries back to your car).

I believe the quarter shopping carts may be from the Aldi's which is located next to Marketplace.....

They serve both - you can use the Marketplace carts in Aldi and vice versa.

nr706 wrote:They serve both.

Yes, and they're not interchangeable, so you can't return an Aldi cart to MoO or vice versa.

I just realized, there's something funny about buying milk at a store whose initials are MoO.

Butera at Nagle/Gunnison

A little farther away, but
Tony's 4137 N Elston

Chicago Style,

In addition to the suggestions you've received I'd offer Eurostyle Deli, many types of house cured and smoked meat, sausage and fish, nice selection of Eastern European beer and wine, dry goods and some prepared foods as well.

I'm a fan of two small ethnic markets at Touhy and Crawford Dong Ah and RC Oriental, not so much for general shopping, but for the extensive selections of prepared foods on the weekend. Post with pictures may be found here

Eurostyle Deli
4861 W Oakton
Skokie, IL 60077
708-329-1430

Dong AH
3933 W Touhy
Lincolnwood, IL 60712
847-673-3055

RC Oriental Outlet
3935 W Touhy
Lincolnwood, IL. 60712
847-674-2120