riddlemay wrote:

Saint Pizza wrote:I love kids, and have three of them myself, but when kids drive mini-carts it drives me up a wall!!!

Maybe the thing that saves the Ashland/School Whole Foods from having this problem is that the aisles are too narrow for kids with mini-carts. So there's no chance of it. (I sure haven't seen it.) I hadn't thought of the narrowness of this Whole Foods' aisles as an advantage, but now I see that it is.

I think all the Trader Joe's have kid carts. I try to avoid shopping at the city TJ's during peak hours, but sometimes, it just happens. The combination of the already too crowded and busy store is always made even worse with the extra space and confusion with the tot carts. I think we need to have adult shopping or adults-only cart time, just like there is adult swim at the pool.

kithat wrote:[I think we need to have adult shopping or adults-only cart time, just like there is adult swim at the pool.

As someone who plows at least 5000 linear metres of chlorinated water a week in an adults-only facility, I can tell you that the average adult cannot swim any better than the average child.

E.M.

And to judge by the parking lot at Trader Joe's on Saturday mornings, they can't drive much better either...

Mike G wrote:And to judge by the parking lot at Trader Joe's on Saturday mornings, they can't drive much better either...

That was my point, whether car or cart.



E.M.

Okay, agreed about the driving, but the mini carts just add to the congestion when it's difficult enough to merely squeeze my body down the aisles, sometimes with a basket, and yes, other times with a cart. Recently, I was somewhere, can't remember exactly, where the carts were shorter lengthwise. I wish this type of cart was offered at more places to ease congestion.

kithat wrote:Recently, I was somewhere, can't remember exactly, where the carts were shorter lengthwise. I wish this type of cart was offered at more places to ease congestion.

Whole Foods on Huron has those carts.

E.M.

Erik M. wrote:

kithat wrote:Recently, I was somewhere, can't remember exactly, where the carts were shorter lengthwise. I wish this type of cart was offered at more places to ease congestion.

Whole Foods on Huron has those carts.

E.M.

Definitely wasn't Whole Paycheck - I mean Whole Foods, I'm just too frugal to shop there. I'm thinking it might be the new Trader Joe's on Ontario.

The Lincoln Trader Joes has had smaller but conventionally-shaped carts since they opened.

The People's Market in Evanston has (or had? haven't been in a long time) much more compact carts that were basically two typical plastic baskets (the kind people who don't need a whole cart use) arranged vertically (kind of like this but the baskets were more like the plastic two-handled kind).

I feel like maybe I've seen those in the Lincoln TJ's also.

G Wiv wrote:Salad Bar Sucker pretty much says it all.

It was on the late side for dinner, nothing much to eat in the house, the wife has a DVD she wants to watch, The Queen, and I have to finish naming all the new offspring in my ant farm, so we toss a coin, Chinese take out, pizza or Whole Foods. WF wins the toss so it's off to Peterson/Cicero, maki rolls for the bride, seriously overpriced salad bar for myself.

I know, I said never again would I wield the WF salad bar tongs, worse just as I was in full salad bar swing who should my wife come walking up with, big smile on her face,....."look who I found"..... but Michael M (EatChicago) and his lovely wife Cookie.

Busted

Michael is a much nicer fellow than I, he only gave me one shot across the bow, I believe it was something to the effect of effete snooty-pants dilettante. In similar circumstance I would not have been as kind.

Passing the hot prepared foods section I was drawn to the fried chicken, spotting a couple of particularly plump thighs in the mix I ask the counter person for two. He comes around the counter, tongs in hand, stares hard at the chicken and, with a puzzled look on his face, says, "which one is the thigh" Initially I thought he was joking, then asked, "you really don't know which one is the thigh?" His answer, "I'm not a chef"

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:Michael is a much nicer fellow than I, he only gave me one shot across the bow, I believe it was something to the effect of effete snooty-pants dilettante. In similar circumstance I would not have been as kind.

I think it was actually more along the lines of "haven't you learned your lesson about this salad bar yet?"

I think I referred to myself as a snooty-pants dilettante for buying fancy, local, cage-free eggs.

Best,
Michael

Erik M. wrote:

kithat wrote:Recently, I was somewhere, can't remember exactly, where the carts were shorter lengthwise. I wish this type of cart was offered at more places to ease congestion.

Whole Foods on Huron has those carts.

E.M.

Whole Foods on Ashland has them too. And those are the kind we always use. Two reasons: 1) WF is not where we "stock up" on everything we can possibly need for the next two weeks (they don't have everything we need anyway, so the Jewel is where we go for that), it's where we go for a few things (produce, meat, fish, dairy, prepared items) for the next couple of days. Seldom do we need more than the capacity of the littler carts for that. And 2), Fitting full-sized carts through those not-full-sized aisles is ridiculous. Which, paradoxically, is another advantage of the not-full-sized aisles. Those narrow aisles almost mandate use of the smaller carts, which have better gas mileage and preserve our world's precious natural resources.

Boy, that Michael & Cookie sure get around, don't they? We ran into them in Pilsen at Neuvo Leon. (Tried to find a thread so I could post my thoughts, but there's only, and it's closed to the public.) My SIL was in town and she wanted to eat Mexican food, so when we walked in to Nuevo Leon and saw EatChicago & Cookie, we knew we picked the right spot!

Okay, on topic: I couldn't find any Virgil's root beer at Dominick's (another one for the "I Loathe Dominick's" thread), but we found some at the WF on Cicero/Peterson. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the beer section is decently stocked, and went home with a Hop Ottin' IPA.

Also, while we were at WF, I got out my little price book where I wrote down some of the produce prices at Dominick's recently, and compared those to WF. I was surprised to see that WF prices match Dominick's. (Mind you, I think Harvestime on Lawrence has produce that is just as fresh, and half the price, so I go there most of the time. )

Yesterday I had the pleasure of checking out the Whole Foods in Cleveland OH--yes, even checking out a Whole Foods can be a foodie pleaasure, although not nearly the pleasure one gets from checking out Cleveland's West Side Market. There's a couple of features in this store that I was wondering if they were duplicated in the Cicero/Peterson Whole Foods (or other recent Whole Foods).

First, they had an egg section. Not Phil's or Organic Valley or other good enough eggs, but about six or seven organic, local (truly), and labeled by breed (!) egg section. Egg tasting? They were far from cheap, like 3 for a dollar, but, well it seemed neat.

Second, on the other end of local, they had a seafood bar with nice looking spiced shrimps and calamari rings and other stuff.

Breadwise, they had a huge Poulain type of miche.

Today, we had an office holiday luncheon. I offered to spring for the entree and everything else was pot luck. I chose the Whole Foods smokehouse for my entree of choice, a wonderfully moist and smoky beef brisket with barbeque sauce. Ordering and picking up couldn't have been easier as my 17 pounds of brisket was neatly packed up in four tin foil pans with lids uponj my arrival at 11 am.

The $9.99 per pound price tag may be a little steep to the average shopper. But, it was certainly a lot cheaper than the crap we pay for when we order the typical Italian Beef and Fried Chicken fare from a beef shop.

There were lots of leftovers and everyone raved about the brisket.

Recent personal discovery at Whole Foods - homemade tortillas. They were offering samples at the relatively new location on Roosevelt as they were coming off the griddle - a chewy, delightful plain wheat flour version, and a Southwestern version with surprisingly non-canned tasting chili and cumin flecks. A pound package (still very warm!) was on special for $1.49, regularly $1.99. Some good eating all by themselves!

eatchicago wrote:I think it was actually more along the lines of "haven't you learned your lesson about this salad bar yet?"

Once again I fall prey to the wily ways of the Whole Foods salad bar. I get in the moment, load up the eco friendly brown cardboard containers and, to my continuing surprise, cost comes to about the same as a burger and beer at Kuma's.

Hello my name is Gary and I'm a Salad Bar Sucker...........

That's not limited to the salad bar at Peterson and Cicero, Gary.

About a week ago, as I weighed up my $17.32 salad purchase at Whole Foods on Halstead, the whippersnapper ringing me up noted, "Wow, you could have gotten a nice aged ribeye for that."

It was that comment that led me to start buying those big plastic tubs of spring salad mix at Costco, garbanzos, shredded cheese, chicken, shredded carrots, edamames, celery, sliced almonds and sesame seeds at Costco andg getting enough fixings for a two weeks of sald for $15.

Um, Not all Whole Foods, but I know Cicero and Peterson, South Loop and Northbrook -

Do you guys ever check out the smokehouse in the meat deparment?

Odd thing about it - all the smokehouse sides are the same price per pound, currently it's $4.99. That's compared to $7.99 from the salad bar.

They won't have as much selection - and the cole slaw will be hiding from the hot sides, and it isn't exactly salad - but it's worth checking out.

Frankly, I work at Northbrook and try to find "deals" for lunch. I still think the pizza is a good deal, I generally like the smokehouse, but the beef brisket has gotten a little high, and in Northbrook we have Sushi - and they have a curious not-listed-on-menu item called "Daily Sushi Special" - I know I can get a cup of chicken with some sauce and a veggie garnish for just $2.99.

By the way, Whole Foods Market, just like any place, has some really good deals, and some rather expensive stuff. Try to find the deals.

Nancy

Only at Whole Foods and excellent - Karite Lips. It's an amazing lip balm, if you like lip balms. I'm addicted.

There's a sign up at the Sauganash Whole Foods promoting their weekly sales (rather a thin list of items for the size of the store) and advertising that you can arrange a one-on-one tour with the concierge Rachel to help you find values in the store and give you shopping tips. I don't recall seeing this sign before so I'm assuming it went up in the last few weeks.

The one-on-one tour concierge tour sounds kind of interesting but I won't have time for at least a few weeks. If anyone takes this I'd be interested to hear about it. I wonder if the concierge would tell you to avert your eyes from the salad bar at all costs? That way lies madness....

grits wrote:The one-on-one tour concierge tour sounds kind of interesting but I won't have time for at least a few weeks. If anyone takes this I'd be interested to hear about it. I wonder if the concierge would tell you to avert your eyes from the salad bar at all costs? That way lies madness....

I saw another sign up in the same store saying that on Thursday evenings, you can sample anything in the store. They claim to have lot's of stuff set up for sampling, but if you see something on the shelf that is not being offered, all you have to do is ask one of the workers and they will open it up for you to try. I've yet to try this, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

stevez wrote:I saw another sign up in the same store saying that on Thursday evenings, you can sample anything in the store. They claim to have lot's of stuff set up for sampling, but if you see something on the shelf that is not being offered, all you have to do is ask one of the workers and they will open it up for you to try. I've yet to try this, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

In theory, this is the WF policy at all times. I was recently in line to check out, and the guy in front of me was waffling on whether to buy some Achatz cookies. (He'd never tried them, and wanted to know if they were worth it.) The woman at the checkout told all of us waiting in line that if we ever wanted to try anything at WFs, all we had to do was ask and they'd give us a sample.

LTH,

Acting on a tip Whole Foods Peterson/Cicero had bone-in turkey thighs for .99c I broke a 6-week Whole Foods hiatus, turns out the turkey thighs were $2.99 but all was not lost as I happened upon cheese monger extraordinaire Matt Parker now head cheese honcho at the Peterson/Cicero WF.

I'd been wondering what happened to Matt after The Cheese Stands Alone closed and consider it a turn of good fortune he's at the WF nearest my house.

Matt suggested Camembert to accompany a small chunk of country pate and seemed energized and happy.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:LTH,

Acting on a tip Whole Foods Peterson/Cicero had bone-in turkey thighs for .99c I broke a 6-week Whole Foods hiatus, turns out the turkey thighs were $2.99 but all was not lost as I happened upon cheese monger extraordinaire Matt Parker now head cheese honcho at the Peterson/Cicero WF.

You snooze, you lose. They actually were .99 two days ago.

You sure they weren't DRUMSTICKS that cheap?

Turkey thigh and breast are both premium - they are turned into the white and dark turkey grinds.

Drumsticks and wings are essentially garbage - any meat department now probably hacked up their birds after turkey day, froze them, and are now just trying to get rid of the pesky drums and wings.

Nancy S wrote:You sure they weren't DRUMSTICKS that cheap?

No. They were thighs. I went in to buy some wings for making stock (also .99/lb) and the thighs were right next to the wings labeled with the same price. I asked the butcher if they were thighs at the same price as wings and he confirmed that yes, indeed they were. My guess is that they were some thighs that were soon to go out of date, or they made a mistake.

10 lb. Turduckens are available for $99.99 or Turducken breast (?) for $70.

G Wiv wrote:LTH,

Acting on a tip Whole Foods Peterson/Cicero had bone-in turkey thighs for .99c I broke a 6-week Whole Foods hiatus, turns out the turkey thighs were $2.99 but all was not lost as I happened upon cheese monger extraordinaire Matt Parker now head cheese honcho at the Peterson/Cicero WF.

I'd been wondering what happened to Matt after The Cheese Stands Alone closed and consider it a turn of good fortune he's at the WF nearest my house.

Matt suggested Camembert to accompany a small chunk of country pate and seemed energized and happy.

Enjoy,
Gary

That's great news about Parker. It's good to know his expertise is available somewhere. And it can only improve the cheese service at that WF.

LTH,

Pressed for time, and needing a Whole Foods specific item (ground bison) I decided to complete my small shopping list at Whole Foods rather than both WF and Marketplace on Oakton or Lincolnwood Produce. I was pleasantly surprised when, on a whim, I really was pressed for time, I asked the butcher if he would section my chicken wings.

No problem, no extra charge, I finished my shopping and swung back to pick up the wings. I should note this was 8am, and they were not busy. Your mileage may vary.

Plus one for WF

Enjoy,
Gary

Lincolnwood Produce
7175 N Lincoln Ave
Lincolnwood, IL 60712
847-329-0600

MarketPlace on Oakton
4817 W Oakton
Skokie, IL 60077
847-677-9330

G Wiv wrote:Pressed for time, and needing a Whole Foods specific item (ground bison)

gary do they grind their bison themselves, or are they selling the prepackeaged stuff?