Hi- Most of tje Dominick's stores have 30% off their liquor today. Over at Jill Cataldo's couponing blog, she just reported that they havehad to lock the doors at the Lake in the Hills Dominick's because they had people this morning walking out of the store with a whole shopping cart full of liquor without paying for it. Now they keep the front entrance locked, and an employee has to unlock the front entrance to let you in and out. I assume they check receipts as you are leaving the store too. That is just disgusting. I don't drink that much, and so I am definitely staying away from Dominick's today.

NFriday wrote:While I was checking out, I saw this couple leaving the store, with two shopping carts filled to the max with toilet paper and plastic garbage bags. They had taken all three cases of the Hefty drawstring garbage bags, and all three cases of the Scotts Extra Soft toilet paper, along with at least five other cases of toilet paper. I wish people would not be so greedy.

I can't speak for the ppl you saw, but I've been known to fill my cart full of shit marked down to incredible prices for donating. Perhaps they were using it for something other than being "greedy." Again, I have no idea, but I've learned over and over again, that judging ppl without knowing them is not the best way to go about things.

I scored some vanilla beans at the Bannockburn store today. They were in a weird spot. Looks like the professional shoppers had already gone through that one. I was hoping to maybe find some saffron too. No dice. Gotta be careful, imo, since Dominck's prices are sky high on a lot of stuff anyway - half off might not be a good deal anyway. If anyone is a Kingsford Charcoal fan, you might wanna watch closely for a new markdown. I've seen bags and bags of it at the two stores I've been in since nobody not many are thinking about grilling in Dec. At 75% off, I'd be a player. 50% - not so much.

Hi- Yes actually they could be donating it, but at one of the couponing blogs I post at, they used to have another poster that buys stuff all the time to donate it, but she got banned a few months ago, because a lot of people did not consider her to be ethical. She'll take the peelies off of items at a grocery store, and use them at another store that has the item on sale. She also got her Jewel store to order 1,000 containers of cookies, which with the catalina that the sale generated she was getting for free. It was only taking her 5 hours to check out, but she was donating them all to the local food pantry. People did not appreciate that she was clearing out the warehouse, whereas lots of people could not find the cookies.

I would have been a lot happier if they would have just taken one case of everything, and not cleaned the store out. How does this help people that are out of work and can't afford to pay full price, but can't find any of the sale stuff they need at Dominick's because somebody has picked it clean?

I know what is a good deal and what is not. I saw people picking clean out the cereal aisle, and at $2.25 a box, that is not a good buy. I bought a lot of stuff that never goes on sale, and you can never get coupons for. I also bought some Lean Cuisine for $.84, and a bunch of Eating Right frozen dinners for $1. At one of the couponing blogs somebody got 8 bottles of real maple syrup, because it never goes on sale. Does Dominick's even carry saffron? Even if they do it is probably ancient. I have heard a lot of reports of people not checking the dates on items, and coming home with some expired items. I checked the dates on all the perishable stuff, and put some back because it was ready to expire.

seebee wrote: I scored some vanilla beans at the Bannockburn store today. They were in a weird spot. Looks like the professional shoppers had already gone through that one. I was hoping to maybe find some saffron too. No dice. Gotta be careful, imo, since Dominck's prices are sky high on a lot of stuff anyway - half off might not be a good deal anyway. If anyone is a Kingsford Charcoal fan, you might wanna watch closely for a new markdown. I've seen bags and bags of it at the two stores I've been in since nobody not many are thinking about grilling in Dec. At 75% off, I'd be a player. 50% - not so much.

Agreed. The HBA prices at Dominicks at 50% off is higher than the sales prices at Walgreens.

Last night, I was comparing the prices between the Kroger's affiliate and the Safeway store in a large western market. I was genuinely surprised at how much higher the prices at Safeway were over their major competitor.

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Complaining about not getting all the great deals? Honestly, in liquidation sales, the person with the money gets the goods. My DW purchased an entire children's department at one of the closed K-Mart stores. She pulled the liquidation manager aside and bought the entire department for one flat price.

Hi- It depends on what you get, and whether you have a coupon. I personally buy very little at Walgreens because I hate their register rewards program. There are too many rules you have to follow in order to cash the rewards. I much prefer CVS.

I loved Dominick's J4U program. Before they started that I did not shop that much at Dominick's. With the J4U program I usually saved at least 50% and sometimes lots more, and I did not have to spend a lot of time cutting out coupons.

Pretty picked over at the Oak Park store tonight.
Still managed to get a few things but it truly looks like a scene from an apocalyptic zombie movie.

Anything new on the 355 E. Grand location in Streeterville? There were rumors about Whole Foods moving in, but nothing for sure the last I heard.

They would be welcome. I went to the North & Sheffield WF store to buy meat for the house over the weekend, and it's like visiting the First World after spending a few years in the worst Third World nightmare by comparison to what Fox & Obel became vs. the good old days of the early 2000's. Of course, you pay for it....

Hi- Isn't Dominick's Grand location near Whole Food's Huron location? I realize that the Huron location is small though. I have been there a few times. The stores that Whole Foods has been rumored to be taking over, have not had any 50% off sale, but the Green Bay store in Evanston, did not have one because they were supposed to stay open, and all of a sudden they had a sale starting this last Friday, because they are not going to stay open. I don't know if that means WF is not taking them over or not. I would call the Grand location and see if they can give you any information, and if they are having a sale right now.

On the two couponing blogs I visit, there is nobody that lives in that neighborhood that shops at that store. The great majority of the people that post on Jill Cataldo and mashupmom live in Lake, McHenry and DuPage counties. There are some Mariano's fans on those sites, but the only time you see them posting about Whole Foods is when there is a rare really good deal like there was a few months ago when there was a $3 coupon good for any rotisserie chicken that people got at Jewel, and WF had it on sale for $5. People were walking into WF with four of the coupons, and so they got 4 chickens for $8. They froze the chicken. I passed on that deal.

I stopped into the Division location yesterday afternoon. They did not have discounts on any of your regular staples such as milk, beef, produce etc. but everything else was 50% off including the bakery that they were just bringing fresh out of the back. Still had lots of wine left at 30% off but it was going fast. It was really interesting to me to see what was left. Of the entire ice cream department only Edy's was left, so is this a terrible ice cream? We will find out we we eat it. Also while all the dog food was gone, most of the cat food was not. Is this because cat owners are not sales shoppers? Or perhaps cats are just more fussy about their regular food and book no sale substitutes?! Overall, though, pretty depressing. It made me appreciate how good we have it, it would be awful if you lived in some country where this was your typical shopping experience.

Hi- The reason why people did not get the Edy's was because the store brand was cheaper, and also they have been restocking the frozen section as week as they get more from the warehouse. When I went to the Dempster/Dodge location last Friday, there was no Breyer's, Hagen Daz or Ben and Jerry's, which gives me the impression that the supplier picked them up. You could get Edy's on sale for $3 at Jewel last week, but I am not sure if it still is on sale, and at Dominick's it is $3 after the 50% off. The regular price for their Lucerne store ice cream is $2.95, and so I got a carton of it for under $1.50. Actually I thought I was going to get it for $1.25, because it was marked as being on sale for $2.50, but then when I got charged the regular price, I took a look at the shelf tag, and the sale was over. I know I could have gone to customer service, but the employees there were having a hard enough time, without dealing with me asking for my quarter back. If I had room in my freezer, I would have bought more ice cream.

Yes, I noticed that there seemed to be lots of cat food. I think the dried dog food at 50% off is a better deal, and a lot of cat owners only buy the dried cat food, which is a lot cheaper. The same thing happened with the diapers. When the health and beauty went on sale on the 6th, people were fighting over the diapers I heard, but the formula and baby food was also on sale, and it hardly got touched.

Cinnamon Girl wrote:Of the entire ice cream department only Edy's was left, so is this a terrible ice cream? We will find out we we eat it.

I'm by no means a brand-conscious buyer but I consider ice cream to be a luxury (contrary to the opinion of many, you can lead a productive life without it). Purchased both Edy's and Breyer's flavors recently and found both to be just plain bad. Not at all worth the calories.

Hi- I love Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but I only buy it when it is under $3 which is not very often. I happen to like Breyer's ice cream. I only buy ice cream when it is $3 or less. I just finished up some Edy's peppermint which was okay. I guess I am less fussy about my ice cream. I am really fussy about cider though and peaches, because I am spoiled. I had one of those Kerig Green mountain cider kpacs a few days ago, when I was over at somebody elses house, and I did not care for it at all.

NFriday wrote:I am really fussy about cider though and peaches, because I am spoiled. I had one of those Kerig Green mountain cider kpacs a few days ago, when I was over at somebody elses house, and I did not care for it at all.

Cider in powdered form is not cider. It's not even astronaut cider. It's just a bad idea.

My fondest memory of Dominick's was when I was a little kid and they had lollipops by the customer service desk. My favorite flavor was blue.

I spent about $60 last night at the Palatine/Rand Dominick's. It was pretty cleaned out, but being one of the few people able to see the back of the top shelf let me find a couple of things.

Their cheeses mostly consisted of things I've never heard of, but did manage to snag a wedge of Appenzeller.
We did get suckered into the easy-break Baker's chocolate, but it was probably still a bit cheaper than the standard package.
Probably the best find was a fistfull of tuna pouches.

They had a large supply of pasta sauce and fruit juice, but I did see a number of things on the shelf that just did not look good: pale, wan giardinera, vomit-hued salsa, etc.

JoelF wrote: It was pretty cleaned out, but being one of the few people able to see the back of the top shelf let me find a couple of things.

Hilarious!

Hi,

I was at Dominick's in Lake Bluff today looking for cat food. I found exactly what I wanted plus a whole bunch of other stuff. When the bill did its gross tally, I had spent $224. By the time all the various discounts and taxes were done, I paid $102. and some small change. At least a third was related to cat food.

Regards,

Hi- You have to look at the expiration date for all your purchases at Dominick's, and especially highly perishable stuff. I noticed last Friday that some inconsiderate customers were grabbing frozen and refrigerated stuff, and then deciding that they did not want it, and leaving it where ever instead of being responsible and putting it back where it belonged. I know that some of the Dominick's stores were throwing that stuff out, but I am not sure if all of them were. When I was in the Morton Grove store on Sunday, I spotted a box of salmon burgers which I did not see Friday at the Evanston store. I decided to pass on them because it just looked like they had sat out for awhile and defrosted, and then put back in the freezer.

Cathy did you get any kitty litter or dried food? I have a friend that has three cats, and she does feed her cats canned cat food, but she could also use the kitty litter. When I looked at Dominick's last Friday mostly what I saw was canned cat food. There was tons of that, but there was next to no kitty litter or dried food.

BTW- A friend of mine that shops at the Evanston Green Bay store who was actually there Friday morning, said that she lives in the same ward that the store is located in, and the alderman for that ward is throwing a party for the employees of that store. I thought that was a really nice gesture. My friend got laid off in October, and has not been able to find a comparable job, and so she has sympathy for the Dominick's employees.

Hi,

I saw no kitty litter or dried dog food. There was a limited quantity of canned cat food and dog food. For my needs, 81 cans of cat food at less than I normally pay was great.

Since almost nothing had prices, I decided to check myself out. If I found something was high even with 50% off, I could ditch it. The gal who manned the self-serve very kindly identified a few things in my cart that was full price.

The tab runs at full price with various items showing modest discounts. I was a bit concerned initially because this cat food was only 10 and 15 cents off. When I finished, I swiped my fresh values card and the discounts began in earnest. The voice activated system was still announcing each discount after I had paid, packed and walked away.

Another customer had already given up her Fresh Values card at Jewel in exchange for a one-time 10% discount. The worker overseeing the self checkout used a courtesy card to handle her purchases.

Regards,

Hi- You can enter in your phone number if you don't have your card. Yes they take the 50% off at the end, after all sale prices and coupons are factored in. The receipts are confusing. I had two J4U coupons that came off last Friday, and I don't know what they were for. Last Friday they limited self checkout at the Dempster/Dodge location to 10 items or less, and so it went considerably faster than the regular checkouts.. This Friday they are going to have all the produce, meat and liquor 50% off. I don't even know if there is going to be any liquor left by then. I heard that the beer and hard liquor pretty much got wiped out on Monday when it went down to 30% off.

Dominick's actually has a sale ad out this week, and the clementine cuties are on sale for $4.99 for a five pound box, which means on Friday if you get there at 6:00am, they are going to be $2.50.

Independent grocery chains affiliated with the Centrella cooperative are in negotiations to buy as many as 10 Dominick's stores, sources familiar with the talks said.

Grocers affiliated with Centrella, the brand name used by Joliet-based Central Grocers Inc., are looking to purchase stores as a group in both the city and suburbs, sources said. It's unclear which Dominick's locations Centrella would buy on behalf of its member firms.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... dominicks#

Dave148 wrote:

Independent grocery chains affiliated with the Centrella cooperative are in negotiations to buy as many as 10 Dominick's stores, sources familiar with the talks said.

Grocers affiliated with Centrella, the brand name used by Joliet-based Central Grocers Inc., are looking to purchase stores as a group in both the city and suburbs, sources said. It's unclear which Dominick's locations Centrella would buy on behalf of its member firms.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... dominicks#

It MIGHT be as Centrella has been losing market share as the McHenry Co. based Wisted's chain moved over to Piggly Wiggly affiliation.

Hi- Somebody at one of the couponing blogs I visit said that a reliable source told her that groceries are going to be 75% off starting today 12/20. Meat is supposed to 50% 0ff, as is produce and liquor.

Hi- I just came back from the Dempster/Dodge Dominick's, and the crowds are a lot smaller than they were last Friday. All the frozen, dairy,. and grocery is 75% off. They had tons of yogurt for $.25, and cheese for $.50-$.80 for 8 ounces. They also had lots of frozen dinners such as healthy choice and eating right for $.50, and they had Alexia frozen potatoes for $.75 a bag. The only liquor they had left was wine, although they had a fair amount of that. I think it was 50% off. The meat and produce was also 50% off, although they were half empty. The produce section still had a fair amount of organic stuff. Everything in the deli section including the rotisserie chicken was 50% off. I did not see how much specialty cheese they had left. All the milk was 75% off, and so I picked up a half gallon of horizon for $1.30.

I ended up spending $18 on $79 worth of groceries. I would have bought more frozen, but I am out of freezer space. The checker told me that they are expecting another shipment from the warehouse either tonight or tomorrow morning, but he does not know what they will be bringing. BTW- For anybody that still has some holiday baking left to do, the store had lots of bags of brown and confectioners sugar for 75% off.

Don't expect to find any cereal or paper products unless you happen to be at the store right after they made a delivery. The cashier said that some people were buying six shopping carts full of paper products at a time, and so that stuff never lasted more than three hours.

There is still a fair amount of stuff left, but they have closed off some of the aisles, and so stuff is kind of jumbled together, and so that means mostly no tags, although at 75% off, it is all a bargain. As far as I know most of the Dominick's stores have all their groceries reduced 75% percent. The only ones that don't are the ones being taken over by Jewel. Hope this helps, Nancy

In an interesting development, the Bannockburn Dominicks will now be open until the end of January. Apparently there was a legal issue with the landlord and they are required to operate it longer. The 50-75% off sale is no longer going on there and they are restocking the shelves.

-Will

Hi- I was at both the Dempster/Dodge Dominick's and the Green Bay one. They both had lots of frozen, and in particular healthy frozen such as healthy choice and Kashi. There produce was kind of tired, although I did get some heads of garlic and one lemon. Most of the meat and dairy was gone. Some of the stores are still receiving shipments. My best buy was some cans of frozen Safeway orange juice for $.25. I also got some frozen dinners for $.50 to $1, and I got some boxes of shredded wheat for $1.

The cashier at the Green Bay store told me that Whole Foods might move in, but it is not a sure fire thing, and he said if anybody moves in it will not be until August at the earliest. The cashier at the Dempster/Dodge store says that there are no potential buyers for the store at this time. I drove past the Jewel on Green Bay in Wilmette today and their parking lot was packed. They are going to do lots more business when Dominick's closes.

I noticed that on the front page of the Sunday trib., there is an article about how a few months before Safeway announced that they were closing all the Chicago stores, a hedge fund that owns a lot of Safeway stock, was pressuring the company to get rid of some of its poor performers.

NFriday wrote:I noticed that on the front page of the Sunday trib., there is an article about how a few months before Safeway announced that they were closing all the Chicago stores, a hedge fund that owns a lot of Safeway stock, was pressuring the company to get rid of some of its poor performers.

I saw this article, too. My gut instinct was to hate the hedge fund. But then I said to myself, well, rationally, if a supermarket in a particular location isn't able to be profitable (or profitable enough), then necessarily that means one of two things: 1) It is not possible to operate a profitable supermarket in that location, or 2) This owner has not found a way to operate a profitable supermarket in that location. Either way they probably should go. In the second condition (it is possible for a supermarket to make money in that location, but the owner hasn't found a way to do so), someone else will certainly find a way to do so! And theoretically no (or limited) net loss of jobs will occur, and the community will remain served.

I'm sure there is something wrong with this logic, and I await finding out what it is.

Your logic is .... logical but only to a degree. Hedge Funds often require an unrealistic level of profitability so a nicely profitable and sustainable business may simply not return the hyper levels of profit vulture capitalists insist on.

Siun wrote:Your logic is .... logical but only to a degree. Hedge Funds often require an unrealistic level of profitability so a nicely profitable and sustainable business may simply not return the hyper levels of profit vulture capitalists insist on.

I do get that, Siun. But I'm saying, OK, let's say that Jana Partners demanded an unrealistic level of profitability and forced Safeway's hand into divesting itself of Dominick's. If a given location was capable of delivering a realistic, sustainable amount of profit to a supermarket, why wouldn't a Mariano's, a Centrella store, a Jewel, rush in there to take advantage of the vacuum? (As is happening with many of the locations.) And conversely, if a Mariano's, a Centrella store, a Jewel aren't rushing in to take advantage of a newly-vacant location, doesn't it mean that this location is not capable of delivering a realistic, sustainable profit?

To put it another way, if the question is "can this location support a sustainable supermarket business," isn't the litmus test "does any other supermarket want it"?

riddlemay wrote:And conversely, if a Mariano's, a Centrella store, a Jewel aren't rushing in to take advantage of a newly-vacant location, doesn't it mean that this location is not capable of delivering a realistic, sustainable profit?

Not necessarily. It could mean that remodeling/developing a new store is not in the budget for this year, or that the long range plan is to take over the store once Safeway leaves the market, thus avoiding the need to pay Safeway anything or it could mean any one of several other things.