Mariano's Coming to Roscoe Village

It looks like Mariano's will be taking the place of the Dominick's that recently vacated the Riverview Mall at Western and Roscoe.

http://www.roscoeviewjournal.com/news/m ... s-to-leave

There was always something very depressing about that Dominick's store. It was always a last resort destination for me, and I always seemed to be one of four or five people shopping there. Better luck to Mariano's. The thread from the Arlington Heights store looks like it will be a welcome addition.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=28096&hilit=Mariano%27s+Fresh+Market

It's definitely a step up from Dominick's but it's not as upscale as it thinks it is. It's really an upscale presentation of the type of food you expect to find at Dominick's/Jewel/Roundy's. From what I understand Mariano was involved in the deal that sold Dominick's to Safeway, so he owes the city a debt for that.

Ready to open:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 9652.story

Darren72 wrote:Ready to open:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 9652.story

It looked pretty open when I drove by on Friday.

I was in a rush, or I would have checked it out myself.

You can send errors of fact directly to the Tribune.

I have shopped at the Vernon Hills location and hands down it is the best grocery store in the Lake County area. I have bought fresh seafood and plan on buying the aged steaks in the premium section of the meat department. The bakery, cheese dept, and deli are great. My family went shopping and had lunch at its sushi bar - though it did not compare to a high end sushi bar, it was pretty good. You have to remember that Lake County does not have a lot of decent food selections. I make a weekly trip to Vernon Hills from Antioch just to shop at Marianos.

Open today and very crowded with some obvious competitors checking it out. First impressions are upscale Dominick's/Jewel with much better quality and prices. Not as international as Fresh Farms. Some fairly exotic produce like lychee, tamarillo, and banana blossoms. Butcher area had some prime selections and a few varieties of Neiman Ranch beef. If all this holds up, I don't see a reason to ever darken Dominick's or Jewel's doorway again except for extreme sales of selected items like soda. Talked for a few minutes to Joe Pardo, the store director (manager). Also formerly with Dominick's and very responsive to any questions or comments. All in all a very smoothly run opening from employees helping behind the counters to checkout.

The big score was a bunch of Didier Farm basil as big as your head for $2.50. Heads were turning as we went by it was so fragrant. I would have really liked to have hit one of these bad boys at $16.99/lb but not the right time of year for me yet.



For some reason I don't see the image when I post. It was a picture of a group of veal shanks that were about 2-2.5 lbs each with bones full of marrow sticking out about 6 inches.

Bought some pork chops there that turned out to be mighty good.

Some stuffed-shells from the takeout counter were also above-average, and very reasonably priced. (Brought to mind a comparison with Whole Foods' takeout counter which was not at all in Whole Foods' favor, in terms of quality or value.)

Overall shopping experience didn't strike me as unlike any I'd ever encountered--in fact, it strongly reminded me of Strack and Van Til--but pleasant enough. I worry slightly about the size and configuration of the parking lot, if the place gets more popular. Seems like more of an "accident waiting to happen" than, say, the Jewel at Ashland and Wellington.

On a second visit, was struck by the quality of the liquor department, which somehow I completely bypassed on my first visit. There is a whole refrigerated room for beer, and the wine selection is truly extensive, including many "higher end" choices. (Far more than I've ever seen in any supermarket before.) The bottom line is that if you were there shopping for food for a dinner party, you wouldn't then have to schedule a visit to Binny's as the next errand on your list. You could get everything you needed in the food and drink department in one place. That's pretty cool.

I am psyched this place is right down the street from me.

I too have visited Mariano's branches in the 'burbs and really loved them.

I've shopped there a couple times already and echo everything above. They have great quality meats and produce. I also like how they seem to have all the standard brands of items you'd expect, plus a couple more you've never seen before...like an up-scale but-no-more-expensive Strack and Van Til. I have been on a keilbasa kick lately, and found this great polish brand, local to Chicago. No more Eckrich for me!

The only downside is that they do have so many novel things (freshly fired pizzas, gelato, etc) that there is just sort of this constant feeling of human cattle just standing around. There are odd groupings of people all over the place who don't seem to really move...it is a fairly minor quibble and is simply a result of all the good things the place has to offer.

Still, if you don't have a huge list, I'd recommend the min-carts they have - much better for navigating the masses standing around, ogling this new, eye-talian sensation called "gelato" being offered...

DClose wrote:The only downside is that they do have so many novel things (freshly fired pizzas, gelato, etc) that there is just sort of this constant feeling of human cattle just standing around. There are odd groupings of people all over the place who don't seem to really move...it is a fairly minor quibble and is simply a result of all the good things the place has to offer.

I chuckled at this, because on the more recent visit, it described me. I was just sort of standing in a daze at times, or wandering without purpose, and the thought crossed my mind that some store manager was going to come up to me and accuse me of loitering, and then one of them smiled at me, and I realized he was saying, "No, man, we get it."

Count me a fan. I thought the produce section was great in terms of variety and pricing. In addition to the Didier basil mentioned upthread, they have Didier corn. Lots of samples throughout the store, which is rarely a bad thing. Also of note, Wednesdays they double coupons, up to $1.

DClose wrote:The only downside is that they do have so many novel things (freshly fired pizzas, gelato, etc) that there is just sort of this constant feeling of human cattle just standing around. There are odd groupings of people all over the place who don't seem to really move...it is a fairly minor quibble and is simply a result of all the good things the place has to offer.

The only downside for me would not be a downside to many others. The constant attention and greetings from the staff go a bit overboard for my taste. I know that it's just a function of my own curmudgeonly nature and I can't really fault them for having vigilant and friendly employees, but it's just not my cup of tea. If I need something, I'll ask.

My favorite score was Nordic Creamery Garlic & Basil and Cinnamon Sugar butters (they had a maple flavor, too). They were in the cheese section, near the Italian cheeses, I think. At $4 per container they might be cheaper than at the Farmers Market, and almost certainly cheaper than other retailers I've seen (I'm looking at you, Provenance). Really looking forward to some french toast cooked in cinnamon sugar butter. I also bought Bel Gioso burrata, which I was not aware they made. It was pretty good, though not great, but at $8 is a fine value and a lot easier for me to justify purchasing. Especially during tomato season.

Agree on the alcohol front--beer room was pretty cool (no pun intended). I'll be interested to see if their prices remain at the level they are at across the board, or are lower right now to bring in some initial traffic. Regardless, I'm glad to have the new option nearby.

Took a trip from Portage park to check the place out.

First thing that came to mind was Riverview. Then it turned into holy crap. In good way.

I'll echo most of the comments above but besides the really good prices (probably because they are new and just opened), the most different thing was in the salad bar, prepared foods, cooked foods, help yourself to a meal area was a checkout kiosk with a checker. You can get and buy anything from the store from this person and her 3 foot square checkout machine. Very unlike Whole Foods on Cicero, where you load up a container for an 8 buck lunch and have to wait in line behind customers with full grocery carts to pay for your ready to eat meal.

It was crazy packed, and people were just standing around gaping. I avoided the food bar area completely.

There was skirt steak, lots of it. Supposedly inner. I got some anyway, we'll see how it turns out. Nice thing - they asked if I wanted it tenderized. The butcher I worked with was very friendly, and when I asked about inner/outer and he didn't know he went to go ask. I liked that they had a lot of different cuts you don't normally see in a supermarket, like pork shoulder.

The one problem I ran into was the bagger - she looked like she was around 16, and had no clue what she was doing. I suggested that she get them to teach her how to bag, since placing a bunch of beer wine and cans on top of bananas wasn't the best way to do it. She looked at me like a bored yet vaguely disinterested rabbit and said nothing. The cashier said she'd help me check the other bags, but that was the worst of it (the other bagging errors were just that she put things together willy nilly - a box of tea in its own bag, wine set down in the cart but not in bags, cans and cucumbers together...). The cashier was very nice.

Speaking of employees, anyone notice every single one of them had a white collared shirt, button down, with a real tie and black slacks, and no athletic shoes worn?

Nice touch, in this slouchy day and age (2011) of work dress.

I'm pretty impressed with Mariano's to this point. I agree about the employees; one offered me a sample of Meat Loaf when another came up and asked, "eww, what is THAT?!?" Also, the 16 year old cashier had to look up every single piece of produce I bought. The quality of the produce and the variety of products in the store are welcome additions to the area. There were a lot of empty spaces in the Jewel parking lot across the street.......

kenji wrote:Speaking of employees, anyone notice every single one of them had a white collared shirt, button down, with a real tie and black slacks, and no athletic shoes worn?

That attire is a throwback to Bob Mariano's early days at Dominick's.

When I worked at Dom's in the mid 70's, we were still required to wear a tie, although they had loosened the restriction on pants-- didn't have to be black. We were also able to wear black (leather) athletic shoes.

I worked at the Jewel on Lake St. in River Forest in 1977. I remember wearing a tie with my vest everyday too. No tennis shoes either.

The worst part of my job was stacking the returned 8 packs of 16 oz pop bottles in the basement. The whole room smelled like saliva.

Oh BTW, there's a Mariano's coming to Elston Ave. near the Secretary of State's building, here in the NW Side, on the old Banker's Life property. Alderman says it should be there and open by next Fall or late Summer.

kenji wrote:Oh BTW, there's a Mariano's coming to Elston Ave. near the Secretary of State's building, here in the NW Side, on the old Banker's Life property. Alderman says it should be there and open by next Fall or late Summer.

That's good news. The last time I talked to the alderman, he said that no one had yet contacted him about the project at all and he wasn't sure if it was going to move forward.

He and I talk over our backyard fence everyday. He had visited the vernon hills store and loved it and I mentioned the Riverview one was now open. He said they'd be checking it out this coming week too.

Went to the Roscoe Village Mariano's today to do a check it out kinda thing. Wow. I was really impressed and the massive crowds hardly even phased me and I usually loathe them. One of my biggest kvetches is that in this town it is very hard to go to one store and get everything you need. And I'm talking about weekly needs -- not the occasional special occasion need. With Mariano's, that bitch is no more. I don't even care that it's really far away for me -- they have a delivery service, so I'm good. Now, granted, it's all shiny and pretty because it's new but the service, the products, the prices -- it all just seemed like I had finally found the grocery store of my dreams. They had Leiderkranz on the shelf -- plus 70 other cheeses I hadn't even seen before and that's saying something in this town of completely identical grocery store cheese selections. They had large curd cottage cheese! They had my soda! They had generic plastic bags! Their refrigerated beer room musta been 30 degrees!

There were a few things that seemed out of whack. For instance, selling "special" bread by the pound. That was odd. Good looking rye bread -- 6 rather sandwich width slices for $3.00. That seemed really wrong to me. You could buy the whole loaf, which somewhere else would be $3-$4 but here is still being charged at $3.95 per pound--for a heavier loaf, it could be $10. You could go to Poilane in Paris and not spend that. Whacked. Another disappointment was that their fried chicken wasn't Publix fried chicken but that's the holy grail of grocery stores for me....so I didn't really expect it to happen.

However..i'm really pleased and I expect that Jewel across the street to die soon. If they can keep up the quality and service, I'm their customer for life.

earthlydesire wrote:
... and I expect that Jewel across the street to die soon. If they can keep up the quality and service, I'm their customer for life.

Could have played baseball in the Jewel lot this morning. Mariano's was fairly bustling. Looks like quality and prices holding up. Competition is great.

Went over to Mariano's to get some lunch today. $6 special of cold foods [main + 2 sides in generous portions] was pretty good. Had a breaded chicken breast, mac & cheese and green-pepper heavy ratatouille.

And.

Do not attempt to go into the prepared food section of the store when Lane Tech is on a lunch break. Contact the school and get a schedule and avoid that section of the store at all costs. Unless you like being in the middle of a swarm of high school students. And I do not mean swarm as a metaphor. I mean a buzzing, darting, elbowing tide of beings.

Wikipedia:

Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by animals of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving en masse or migrating in some direction. As a term, swarming is applied particularly to insects, but can also be applied to any other animal that exhibits swarm behaviour.

[/old person rant.]

During a school day there's 4600+ humans in that building.

Here's their schedule:

http://lanetech.org/bellschedule.php

I've been three times so far and I definitely like it. It it certainly a step up from Jewel, and is on par (to a bit above) with Strack and Van Til for produce, with a bit more selection. I generally don't buy prepared foods, so I can't really compare that section to other places. It did look good though.

Their beer selection is certainly good, but their prices are a bit higher than Jewel next door. Jewel upgraded their beer selection a couple months ago, adding a good 20-30 feet of fridge space for beer, and depending on the beers I'm looking to get it is a toss up between going to Jewel or Mariano's.

The pastries look great in the bakery, but I haven't had any yet. The bread is ok, but they don't have any real baguettes (the French bread is FAR from being French bread) and the other types I've bought so far are underwhelming.

I was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed by the meat there. The big veal shanks looked nice, and I got some nice skirt steak and eye round for a decent price. Pretty good quality, much better than Jewel meat, not as good as Costco meat, and definitely much lower quality than going to a dedicated butcher shop. What was disappointing to me was that they had a cutting room clearly visible through a window behind the butcher's counter with 3 or 4 people (butchers I supposed) standing around in it. I asked if I could get some beef short rib cut across the bone and the guy behind the counter didn't even know what beef short rib was. I asked someone else and they said they had it in the packaged section and they don't cut anything to order. It is decent quality meat, and they have the basic cuts, but beyond the volcano veal shanks there wasn't anything that really jumped out. I'm especially demanding about meat, but I was surprised to not see full short ribs, tri-tips, and a number of other cuts that have become more common in recent years. Both Strack and Costco beat them on selection of cuts. They do have a wide variety of marinaded meats, which is really where the money is.

Everyone behind the meat counter was friendly, but so far has been caught completely off guard by any questions about meat beyond what is in the display case and how much it costs. It might be part of a service training issue in general and just getting their legs - they've done a great job at teaching people to be friendly and helpful, but not such a great job at teaching them about the product. . At checkout I've been asked by cashiers to tell them what the following vegetables were: endive, fennel, brussel sprouts, napa cabbage, and every type of tomato or potato I've bought. They should walk their cashiers through the produce section a couple times.

All in all a great addition to shopping options and I'm sure I'll be going there frequently (but I would like to see them kick it up a notch).

I'm chiming in again on pastry -- I tried a cupcake. It was rather meh. Gorgeous looking but really artificial tasting. Vanilla on vanilla, essentially. The frosting especially tasted really subpar. I inquired and they do make them in house. The larger cakes are made from some central location and shipped to the stores.

Sometimes it's okay to get a grocery store cake -- once again I note the excellence of the Publix chain -- in Atlanta, a Publix cake for a gathering is not only desired, it's welcomed. Here -- getting a cake at a grocery store (with the possible exception of Costco) is a sign of convenience and budget. I do not crave a Jewel cake.

I also tried their house made hot italian sausage and mild italian sausage...not much difference between the two that I could tell except for the presence of fennel seeds. They were acceptable; very coarse grind which I don't love that much but it was seasoned okay. The jewel sausage is just horrible to me while the dominck's is a bit better. Good italian sausage in this town is often located as far away from me as possible, so I was hoping this would become my gold standard. It's fine but not gold.

My initial excitement has been tempered a bit but I could see myself doing a major shop here once a month and then filling out my needs closer to home as they occur. Plus my local Jewel is my pharmacy and they know me well. So I won't abandon them completely -- I do wish they'd get their act together though.

The Didier Farms corn was stunning.

Listen to Attrill, he sums everything up nicely about Mariano's. There's not too much to get excited about. Mariano's trods more in Jewel territory than Whole Foods territory. For instance, there's aisle after aisle of nationally-produced chips and soda, but the flour section contains more variety than your Jewel, which would carry only several brands of AP flour, and one expensive brand of Whole Wheat.

The produce is meh, industrial stuff, gassed peaches, etc., produce that looks way better than it tastes. They were advertising a bin of Wisconsin heirlooms in the front, but the tomatoes had a suspicious, waxy-looking shine, as if they could not be sold @ Mariano's unless they were spiffed up. And they were priced on par with farmer's markets. I did, however, find a flat of gorgeous California figs, reasonably priced at $5.49.

I thought the bakery was better than normal, although Attrill is correct in that what they're dubbing French bread is the same crap labeled "French bread" at Jewel-Dom. The foccacia, though, is decent, for $2.50, and the sliced "everyday" toast breads are much better (and cheaper) than what you'd find at the Jewel's.

When I was there, the lines at the Deli were outrageous. Apparently, Mariano's has a huge following with the blue-haired cold cuts crowd. For me, "cold cuts" consists entirely of Italian salume -- and Mariano's underachieves here, mostly Volpe products. No prosciutto di Parma, their "highest-end" prosciutto was produced by Accademia di Barilla, you know, the sauce- and pasta- makers. And it looked terrible. They could at least carry San Daniele. But people were ordering it up, and they way the staff shredded the proscuitto in the inappropriate, generic slicer, and piled each slice on top of each other (instead of slightly overlapping it in a row), would make Jim Graziano go ballistic. There is, however, one find that's worth it. There are salume in paper bags in the front of the case -- various types, finocchiona, etc. -- priced at $14.99 a pound. Nice funk, good texture. That is worth buying. There is also some very respectable, tender fresh mozzarella in water behind the deli, reasonably priced at $4.49/lb. But the people working behind the counter have no f'in clue what they're doing -- I asked for bocconcini, which is how the cheese was labeled, and I received a blank stare. Then, I pointed and said the fresh mozz, more blank stare. When I finally communicated effectively what I wanted, I asked her to weigh it out and then put some water on it, to which she responded, snottily, "I know what I'm doing." Really? A minute ago you didn't know what I was talking about. Of course, she put only two small spoons of water over the cheese, but I gave up at that point, and figured I'll deal with it at home.

The real star of this place is the meat market. It's no Butcher and Larder, with gorgeous nicely butchered cuts of superbly raised meat. The meat certainly has an "I've been shipped across country"-tired, look. But they're are a ton of different cuts, very reasonably priced, glistening Bell & Evans chickens, Niman ranch lamb, and prime steaks for abotu $17.99/lb. The guys behind the counter, while friendly, were clueless.

The cheese section could use some improvement -- they're not buying whole wheels and cutting them like Whole Foods. Expect hunks of cheese labeled and packaged at the factory, and a mainstream selection. The do have grouped together a fairly deep selection locally-produced cheese (though they're not labeled as such), so if you'd like to sample what's being produced in Wisconsin, there's an opportunity. I purchased some Belgioso crescenza -- you don't see that type of cheese too often. (And I think Belgioso puts out a pretty solid though mass produced product.)

I had an issue at checkout after I told the bagger that I wanted to carry out my flat of figs, and he responded that he would give me a bag, and proceeded to tip the flat sideways into a plastic bag (at which point they would all fall out and get bruised) before I stopped him. WTF? But I think it's a function of the Jewel-Dom mentality where you train your workers to bag every flippin' thing your customers buy even if it's a pack of gum. Mariano's has a long way to go in terms of training its employees, and carrying better quality products, if it wants to compete with higher end stores like Whole Foods.

Speaking of baked goods, I walked up the 'hispanic foods' aisle [have fallen in love with mayonaisa con limon] and noticed that the tortilla selection was all plastic-wrapped corporate tortillas [like Old El Paso] instead of the fresh locally produced ones like Del Rey or El Milagro. Maybe there's fresh ones elsewhere in the store, but I didn't see them.

And there's a significant Mexican component in the area, which makes it that much more puzzling . . .

Giovanna

Giovanna wrote:Speaking of baked goods, I walked up the 'hispanic foods' aisle [have fallen in love with mayonaisa con limon] and noticed that the tortilla selection was all plastic-wrapped corporate tortillas [like Old El Paso] instead of the fresh locally produced ones like Del Rey or El Milagro. Maybe there's fresh ones elsewhere in the store, but I didn't see them.

And there's a significant Mexican component in the area, which makes it that much more puzzling . . .

Giovanna

Oh, good point. That was something that made me spittin'-mad. I meant to file a written complaint with the store about the this -- we live in Chicago, not upstate New York. There should be boxes of freshly-made tortillas.