Angelo Caputos expanding

I was at the Caputos Elmwood Park location on Thursday and noticed that they have giant signs plastered all over the place stating that they are taking over the old Circuit City on Grand and Harlem (just a couple of blocks south of the current location).

It's already one of my favorite stores so I am looking forward to seeing what they will do with all the extra space. According to one of the cashiers, the new location will be opening around December.

Crain's Chicago Real Estate Daily has quite a few details.

A venture controlled by Caputo’s owners Robertino and Antonella Presta recently purchased the Circuit City at 7200 W. Grand Ave., in the western suburb for $5.5 million, and plans to move within nine months from the location where the six-store chain got its start 51 years ago.

In addition to the 32,244-square-foot Circuit City, which closed this year when the company went out of business, the Prestas also purchased a 20,000-square-foot shopping center next door, and plan to knock down a portion of that center to expand the Circuit City building as soon as possible.

The new Caputo’s will have 30,000 square feet of selling space, says Mr. Presta, compared with 12,500 square feet at its existing Elmood Park store.

Another major upgrade: the new location will more than double the size of the parking lot.

“For 50 years our customers have been complaining about one thing: there’s no parking,” says Mr. Presta. “When we move, we’ll go from a 60-car parking lot to a 150-car parking lot.”

Later in the story it notes that Angelo Caputo's wife name was Romana. This probably explains their use of Bella Romana as a house brand.

I wish Caputos would expand further west. The closest to me is the South Naperville location.

jimswside wrote:I wish Caputos would expand further west. The closest to me is the South Naperville location.

There is one up on Randall Road in South Elgin/St charles area..thats pretty far west

Head's Red BBQ wrote:

jimswside wrote:I wish Caputos would expand further west. The closest to me is the South Naperville location.

There is one up on Randall Road in South Elgin/St charles area..thats pretty far west

sorry... I meant further southwest... perhaps Joliet, Minooka, etc.

yay! that parking lot is a nightmare. i go there every week, but there are certain things about the place that bug me.

worst things about caputo's:
1. parking lot too small
2. saftey straps for tots on carts inoperable
3. lousy meat (but cheap!)
4. aisles too narrow for two carts
5. propensity to scan prices incorrectly
6. cheap olive oil that does not taste like olive oil to me
7. premium ice cream is crazy expensive there (weird!)
8. they only sell extra large eggs
9. wine selection
10. no fresh pasta

teatpuller wrote:yay! that parking lot is a nightmare. i go there every week, but there are certain things about the place that bug me.

worst things about caputo's:
1. parking lot too small
2. saftey straps for tots on carts inoperable
3. lousy meat (but cheap!)
4. aisles too narrow for two carts
5. propensity to scan prices incorrectly
6. cheap olive oil that does not taste like olive oil to me
7. premium ice cream is crazy expensive there (weird!)
8. they only sell extra large eggs
9. wine selection
10. no fresh pasta

I guess im glad I only go to Caputos to buy their produce, deli meats, and cheeses, and expensive olive oils.

i forgot one:

11. no twist ties in the produce section.

jimswside wrote:

Head's Red BBQ wrote:

jimswside wrote:I wish Caputos would expand further west. The closest to me is the South Naperville location.

There is one up on Randall Road in South Elgin/St charles area..thats pretty far west

sorry... I meant further southwest... perhaps Joliet, Minooka, etc.

yea naperville is the most south they go I think..i do several product demos there and neve rknew Naperville went that far south..its pretty much Plainfield at that point..
i do agree that the produce , cheeses and olive oil sleections are really good
they also carry great bbq sauce

as far as the lousy meat that was mentioned bu someone else..its just a matter of checking labels..not all the meats are choice..some are select grade and lower..always smart to ask prior to purchase

Head's Red BBQ wrote:
they also carry great bbq sauce

Ill take your word on that.

I do like their hot sauce selection as well. I sadly only get to the Naperville Caputo's once every month to two months.

i normally go to the one in bloomingdales as its a few mins from the house but the the Naperville one is really nice..a lot bigger too

not sure about the twist tie inventory there though

benscanlon wrote:I was at the Caputos Elmwood Park location on Thursday and noticed that they have giant signs plastered all over the place stating that they are taking over the old Circuit City on Grand and Harlem (just a couple of blocks south of the current location).

It's already one of my favorite stores so I am looking forward to seeing what they will do with all the extra space. According to one of the cashiers, the new location will be opening around December.

Getting close...

I live in Joliet and probably go to Caputo's more than any other store for many of my items. I love the produce selection, deli meat is decent (I'd like some better prosciutto). The import selection is nice too. Not only for the various Italian imports but all the others as well...comes in real handy! The prices at Caputo's is pretty nice too, especially for the produce and stuff that I normally buy.

What I don't like?

I don't care for their meat.

I don't care for their fish or seafood at all.

I don't care for their olive oil selections...there's much ado about nothin'

I wish they had better cheeses, but I've got a little shop on the way home, in Plainfield, that I go to. So no big deal.

Did I mention wanting better prosciutto?




All in all...a nice grocery store. Couldn't you see them selling fresh harvested olive oil poured into your own jugs? Oh I could



dan

i'll miss the old place.

gonefishin wrote:I wish they had better cheeses, but I've got a little shop on the way home, in Plainfield, that I go to. So no big deal.

Why don't you tell us about the cheese shop in Plainfield?

Regards,

I've been to TCC Wineshop in Plainfield, which might be what gonefishin was talking about.

It's a quirky little place, but I like it. The cheese is well-chosen, not extensive, but nice. The wines are not the usual Jewel selection, and the people are very nice and eager to talk. They have a couple of tables where they serve cheese plates, quiche, sandwiches, etc., and in the summer, they have more tables outside. The outside tables are quite enjoyable.

And speaking of quirky wine stores, Montage in Morris Illinois is an unexpected treasure, too. They don't serve food, but you can buy glasses of wine and browse their shelves for out-of-the-ordinary wines. It's definitely worth a stop.

Gonefishin:

Since you're coming all the way from Joliet to Caputo's, for much better prosciutto head North for another six blocks to:

Riviera Foods 3220 N Harlem Chicago 773.637.4252

They have a great selection of dried pasta and make their own sausages, giardinara and salumi. Grab a fantastic sandwich - I like the Diavolo or the Will Special - lunch for $4.

Venture a little farther North and West to:

Joseph's 8235 W Irving Park Road Chicago 773.625.0118

They have a good selection of canned tomatoes, a great butcher shop, sausages, good fish and plenty of prepared foods like foccacia and housemade marinara.

Continue West and then South to:

Caputo's Cheese Market 1951 N 15th Avenue, Melrose Park 708.450.0074 www.wisconcorp.com

Same family as the other Caputo's, but they're separate entities. A great deli with the best prices on prosciutto around. They have their own label Parma, San Daniele and Serrano for $14/lb! Great selection of cheeses from everywhere, fresh mozzarella and riccota, housemade sauasages, olive oil, bottled water, salumi.

Cathy2 wrote:

gonefishin wrote:I wish they had better cheeses, but I've got a little shop on the way home, in Plainfield, that I go to. So no big deal.

Why don't you tell us about the cheese shop in Plainfield?

Regards,

Hi Cathy (love your posts. I've usually do more reading than posting, here at LTH)

The cheese shop, in Plainfield, is TCC Wine Shop that tcdup mentioned...and linked to. It's a nice little shop of cheeses. They have some staples that they keep and rotate new cheeses in to keep the selection somewhat fresh as well. Most of the cheeses there are pretty decent, even if it may not be your particular favorite.

They've also got a good selection of wines that start off pretty low in price. Since I don't know wines that well I usually just describe what I'm cooking, what ingredients and the likes/dislikes of my wife...and they usually match me up with a decent wine I keep telling them that they need to buy a nice leg of Iberico Bellota, could imagine how much cheese that thing would sell?

mchodera, thanks so much for the suggestions! I'll definitely visit the places you mentioned at some point. but the Caputo's that I go to is over in the Naperville/Plainfield area, so it's not a bad drive. But I do wish, I wish there was someplace closer for good prosciutto. I currently go up to Fox & Obel occasionally to get Iberico Bellota, Pio Tosini and some of the other really good selections. I swear I'm addicted to that stuff!

take care all,
dan

Anything to report yet?

Not open as of yesterday. They said around the 17th.

Just drove by and the sign in the doors says grand opening Tuesday.

It's open.

We needed one of the things that Caputo's does exceedingly well, coffee--the locally roasted Fratelli coffee is a bargain to boot. So, with that excuse we hit the new store.

Now, I am sure my wife and I will shop here about as often as we shopped the other place; close; the prices are still about as good as you can get. Three varieties of Michigan apples for 59 cents/lb; citrus was priced to move. A very nice price on the Genova tuna. Etc. Still, I gotta say, I was pretty bummed with the new store.

It's a freakin' supermarket. I mean that's not a bad thing, and more than a few check-out lines is a very good thing, but it really does not have, well what's Italian for Je ne sais quoi. Like a bushel of fresh garbanzo beans here, and I mean a bushel not a crate decked out too look like a bushel; the way the cabbage always gets stacked in the corner; another bushel of black radishes there; the wrapped up boxes of near spoiled fruits for cheap prices. The nuts spilling on the floor. This is all just set out like, well Jewel. Bigger will probably be better, but it won't be as fun to shop.

I had to laugh. They have something like four times as many parking spaces and you still have to circle the lot and then wait for someone to finish loading up their groceries before you find one! A note that if you enter from Harlem, you have more possible spaces-- I will have to try that next time.

Some things I'm glad to see. Swad aged basmati--special this week @ 7.99 for the 10 pound bag. That's two bucks less than Patel charges on Devon and, no surprise, they were almost sold out. Lots of other Indo-Pak groceries as well. I think the variety of in-house packaged dried nuts and fruits is also even larger with the same awesome prices. A much broader selection of wine. Even decent supermarket sushi!

Lots of people giving out samples: The two ladies from Montana who were grilling samples of Montana Ranch Piedmontese beef said that Caputo's is the only store in Chicago handling the brand. The sample persuaded me to buy a steak and a small roast. The funny thing is that I commented on the sale price on the eye of round ($2.99 a pound) and they thought I was complaining! I was also persuaded to buy each of the two varieties of the vinegar-based Shemwell's BBQ sauce. No samples, but the distributor was standing by the shelf and urged them on me. I can't say no to anyone who is trying to make a living in Cairo, IL. On the other hand, the brownies from the bakery were way too sweet and nothing in the prepared goods counter looked particularly tempting when compared to, say, the prepared foods at Freddy's Pizza in Cicero. But I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

It's great to see a local grocer expanding. I wish them well.


Nice article about the new store from the Oak Park Wednesday Journal

Ann Fisher wrote:I had to laugh. They have something like four times as many parking spaces and you still have to circle the lot and then wait for someone to finish loading up their groceries before you find one! A note that if you enter from Harlem, you have more possible spaces-- I will have to try that next time.

Do you think this will be the normal situation, or did you go during primetime?

I was there during prime time on the opening weekend, so I don't think it will always be this packed. Even yesterday, though, I did find a spot on my first go-around. They have a ton of staff, and some of them were out in the parking lot helping people unload their groceries so they could get away faster and directing waiting cars to open spaces. I also assume that when a store is new people spend a lot longer in it, checking everything out and trying to locate items.

As someone else who went there opening weekend, at peak business hours (mid Saturday), I had two thoughts: 1) There's a reason I never go there at peak hours and 2) I didn't think it was possible for the parking situation to be even worse than before, but there you go. Not only did I have to circle, but I literally had to circle, because the way it's laid out anyone waiting for a spot backs up all traffic in the said circle and forces you to wait out the circuit, something exacerbated by the traffic coming in to the circle directly off Harlem (no doubt people seeking parking right in front but forced to enter the endless queue of the main lot). Took me ten minutes to simply make a full 360.

Insult to injury is trying to get out and turn east on Grand to get back to Harlem, against traffic, which seems pretty impossible, given the train tracks there are a terrible intersection in the best of circumstances. I had to draw a diagram for a friend to underscore the sheer craziness of the situation. I went west instead so that I could go around the block.

Anyway, weekday mornings for me once again.

As for the interior, I credit the chaos to simply everyone getting the lay of the land. That said, I didn't notice much in the way of new offerings, just more space. Perhaps I'll explore it at leisure at a future date. I was a bit bummed that the bok choy I'd been craving seemed pretty wan.

I was in the new store this afternoon, a Monday, a bit after 2pm. I was walking and so not dependent on parking, but the parking lot appeared to be pretty full. The store was not very crowded. Parking was a convoluted mess when Circuit City was there although buffered by the paucity of customers. I am in the area frequently because of a building nearby, which is also why I have managed to avoid the parking problems at both locations. The new store is a bit longer walk but a lot easier to cross Harlem.

Some of the produce appeared pretty tired. Escarole at $1.29/lb. looked appealing until I got close enough to actually look at the stuff. I passed. They had temple oranges, but all too many showed bruises. I did manage to find four in good shape. The old pattern of having some dubious produce has carried over. We have had a secondary garden nearby since 1987 and routinely composted produce better than what Caputo's had in stock in too many cases.

My quick observation on packaged goods is that the selection of Polish items is a lot larger while many other ethnic lines have a bit more variety. They have a larger selection of Bonne Maman jams and jellies than most stores including both red and black currant jellies, which were on sale at $3.99. The other big increase is in nonfood household products.

I will probably continue to shop at Caputo's occasionally primarily for some of the Italian specialties but otherwise will continue to stop at A&G on the way home for most produce.

Considering the debacle that was the former parking lot at the old store, it is very disappointing to hear that parking is still a train wreck at this new store. They certainly had plenty of time to figure out some way to improve upon it, but for some reason chose not to.

Perhaps a clue about their attitude toward parking: when they did the major expansion to the south in the old store there was no increase in parking.

The geometry of the new site presents some problems for a good parking layout. Even totally tearing down the old Circuit City building and putting up a new building oriented differently would not have solved the basic site geometry problem let alone do anything about trying to put five gallons into a two-gallon bucket. The site is not big enough to have adequate parking for that size supermarket. Parking was borderline at peak periods for Circuit City, which had much lower customer counts than any reasonable supermarket.

Parking on the west side of Harlem closer to the old store may be a better bet if you are buying only what you can carry easily. Weekday parking availability there has improved since the store move.

Edit to note that the old store had 208.3 square feet of selling space per parking space while the new store has 200 doing calculations from the Crain's quote in the second item in this thread.

ekreider wrote:
Edit to note that the old store had 208.3 square feet of selling space per parking space while the new store has 200 doing calculations from the Crain's quote in the second item in this thread.

If you take the parking spaces figure from the more recent Wednesday Journal article (210 instead of the 150 reported in the year-old Crain's article), it would be 143 square feet of selling space per parking spot in the new location, so an improvement, even if not perfection.