Valli Produce in Evanston

According to the Evanston Now website:

Valli Produce opened its enlarged, 70,000 square foot store in Evanston with a ribbon cutting ceremony at the site of the former Dominick's market in the Evanston Plaza shopping center this morning.

Alderman Peter Braithwaite, whose 2nd Ward includes the shopping center, praised the company's efforts to hire locally -- saying 85 percent of the new store's 120 employees are Evanston residents.

Store manager Carmine Presta thanked the city's elected officials and economic development staff for supporting the company's expansion into Evanston. The store here will be the family-owned grocer's sixth store.

Presta said Valli also plans to eventually renovate the entire Evanston Plaza complex. He called the store opening the start of a long-lasting relationship with Evanston and said the company would work hard to make Evanston proud of Valli.

Valli announced plans to buy the shopping center, and Safeway's lease on the former Dominick's building, last summer and unveiled its plans for expanding the store from 58,000 to 70,000 square feet early last fall.

Presta says that because Valli doesn't have an off-site warehouse, it needed to expand the store's footprint to be able to have the space to keep the market fully stocked.

photos at evanstonnow.com

We're going over to check it out later this afternoon.

Hi- It looks like they have a few good grand opening specials for the Evanston store only. They have blueberries for $.99 a pint, whereas Jewel has them on sale 2 pounds for $3, and they are at least $4 2/$7 at the farmer's market. They also have 10 pounds of Idaho potatoes for $1.49, which is a good deal, but I love Yukon gold potatoes. I would rather spend the extra money and get the Yukon gold potatoes at the farmer's market. They also have pineapple for $.98. I noticed that the store has 10% off for Seniors on the 28th. I am not sure if they do this every Tuesday or not. Does anybody know if Valli's accepts manufacturer coupons? Some of the produce places do and some do not. I know Lincolnwood Produce does not.

I am going to wait a few days before I hit Valli's. I am sure it is going to be super busy today. I just went to the Jewel on Chicgo Avenue yesterday anyway, and spent $27 there, but $8.25 was spent on toilet paper that will last me for three months. I also got a lot of clearance items too, including 10 boxes of Essential Everyday hot cocoa mix, which was marked down to $.59 a box. They had a ton of it there, and so there might be some still available. I also got a bag of organic muesli for $2.49, and there was a $2 coupon attached to the bag, and I got four box of Nature's Path organic cereal, for $1.24 a box, and all the boxes contained codes for a free one year subscription to Rodale's Organic Life magazine. I did not get any, but they also had lots of coffee pods dirt cheap, and lot's of Mother's cereal marked down to $1.24 a box too. Hope this helps, Nancy

Valli wasn't super-crowded this afternoon - certainly not compared to our trips to both the Glenview and Skokie Mariano's on each of their opening days. It's an impressive store - far better than the Dominick's that used to be there, even when Dominick's was really Dominick's, before Safeway bought them out to teach Midwesterners how to run a grocery chain.

Hi- The only reason I was sorry to see Dominick's go was because I loved their J4U savings program, which was customized according to your shopping history. Jewel's mymixx is supposed to be similar, but so far my mymixx offers are not individualized, and most of the Jewel employees don't know a lot about the program, and don't really give you enough time to enter in your mymixx number, which is your phone number. Last week when I bought some frozen yogurt at the Skokie Jewel, I had problems getting my number entered in the system, and so I asked the cashier to do it. She admitted that she did not know a lot about mymixx, but she entered it anyway, but it did not go through, and so my $1 coupon for the frozen yogurt did not get applied. I went to customer service and explained what happened, and I was surprised that she actually handed me a dollar. That is the only reason I prefer to go to the Chicago Avenue Jewel, because that store still has self checkout lanes, and I have no problems with mymixx there.

I think the reason why Valli was not crazy busy today was because the closest store until now has been at least 15 miles away, and most people in Evanston have never been to any of their stores, and plus they did not do a very good job of promoting the Evanston store.

We went to the Valli Produce store in Evanston yesterday and it is one big beautiful store.

Valli Produce
in the shopping mall at the southwest corner of Dempster and Dodge.
1910 Dempster St
Evanston, IL 60202
Phone: 847-866-6100
Store Hours:
Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm
Sunday: 6am-9pm

The produce section is probably the drawing card at this location because for many Evanstonians the alternative is the terrible terrible worst in the entire area produce section at the Jewel on Chicago Ave by Dempster or the really tiny produce section and high prices at Whole Paycheck. Valli's prices are average, not Jerry's-cheap or Whole Paycheck-ridiculous.

There is a nice fresh fish section -- nowhere near as large as Fresh Farms but they had the kind of display of variety that we all have seen at any of these store openings: oysters, clams, squid, two kinds of scallops, whole fish and fillets etc etc.

The prepared food section was nice but nowhere near as large as the Valli Produce store on Golf Road. We bought some spinach pies. They have a nice big olive bar with more than olives: We bought stuffed grape leaves, roasted red peppers, those small round cherry bomb peppers that are sweet and spicy, marinated mushrooms. These went well with the spinach pies.

Big wine and beer section. The center grocery section has everything you could want including ethnic foods.

They have an entire wall of small cartons of bulk items: nuts, trail mixes, grains -- you have to see it to believe it. It is massive.

There were a lot of 'specials' with prices below typical. We picked up Minute Maid lemonade half gallon for 99 cents. (I know. this is a terrible product that is basically high fructose corn syrup and water but it is very handy on a weekend for folks that want their Arnold Palmers.)

They were sampling: taco meat, salsas and guacamole --all house made) -- on tortilla chips; quesadillas with chorizo; sushi; sandwich ham and turkeys etc. There is a huge deli counter loaded with turkey breasts and hams and salamis.

All of the new stores that have opened in the past few years are starting to look so much alike that it must be hard to distinguish one store from another or find something unique about each. What impressed me about Valli Produce is that they got their store up and running in the time they promised while the Fresh Farms on Golf Road is now offering an OCTOBER opening date. Fresh Farms is now in its second year of construction and shows no sense of urgency. Time is money, people! I think of how Kauffman's languished in limbo all those months while arguing with the insurance company, property owner and city over licenses etc. Yet Valli Produce put this store together in a short time by working with the property owner to buy the property and working with the Evanston village authorities to get the permissions it needed. True, Valli still has some construction going on. And they did not do a complete fancy job (look down at the concrete floor inside and you will see the wear and tear and cracks left from Dominick's). But in my opinion, it is one big beautiful store that has three advantages: Much of the competition is failing its customers. Valli is in a great location with lots of free parking and a good product. And THEY ARE OPEN ha ha ha.

All that being said, isn't it a great time to be a north suburban grocery shopper? Competition benefits the consumer.

I went to Valli today and it was okay but not great. THeir biggest drawing card by far was their produce. A lot of the produce prices were really reasonable. I did stop at customer service, and ask if they were going to start offering local produce. The CS person got a hold of the person in charge of produce, and he said that they already carry some local produce. I did see zucchini from both Mexico and the US. I saw some red pepper from Mexico. Granted it is too early to find local red peppers, but Mexico. They also put their potatoes in a refrigerated case, which is a nono. They had lots of shrink wrapped trays of clearance produce that they were selling for $1.49 a tray, which in most cases was not a good deal. They had one try where you got two heads of lettuce for $1.49, and heads of lettuce were going for $.79 a piece for the non blemished heads. I also saw trays of green potatoes. Why would anyone want to buy a tray of green potatoes that probably held three pounds of potatoes at the most, when you could get a 10 pound bag of Idahos for $1.49. All I ended up getting was a small gelato for $1, which was really good, and two pints of California blueberries that were on sale for $.98 a pint. I can't understand while none of the stores have been carrying Michigan or New Jersey blueberries this summer. I believe Michigan is the largest grower of blueberries in the country. Yes I could get organic blueberries from Michigan at the farmer's market, but they were $5 a pint last Saturday, and were so so. I ended up buying a pint of blueberries from Seedlings last Saturday that were better, but I paid $5 for those too.

Has anybody tried the seafood at Valli's yet? It was fairly inexpensive, but I was not sure about the quality of it. The rest of the store is okay, but not great. I can get better deals in the grocery section of Jewel. The main draw is the produce, although I am sure that the prices are going to go up in a few weeks. I would have gotten some milk there, but you have to purchase $25 of groceries in order to get it for $1.99. I might go back to the store on Tuesday when they have 10% off for Seniors and get some cherries and maybe some more blueberries, and a few other things such as cheese.

Yes, the produce section at the Chicago Avenue Jewel stinks, but the produce section at both of the Wilmette stores is much better. Some of Whole Foods produce is expensive, but it in general is nicer than Jewel, and I bought some Western cherries there on the 4th, that were only $1.99 a pound. In general though, I think I will continue to buy most of my produce at the farmer's market. Jerry's produce is cheaper than Valli's, but the quality is much lower, and the parking is abysmal there. I thought that Valli would have more customers than they did today. They had 10 lanes open though, so there was no waiting to check out. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday,

Just a thought, if you are looking for good produce prices in that area, have you checked out Village Market on Dempster? It's a small place, but their prices have seemed pretty good to me.

Joy wrote:The center grocery section has everything you could want including ethnic foods.

Literally though.. I saw more reasonably priced types of grated dry cassava, canned baba ghanoush, super dark Polish chocolate, and Moroccan sardines than any other supermarket I've been to.

The produce looked fresh, but I can't imagine any store not having fresh vegetables in the first week of opening...

The gelato samples are table spoon sized. Quite reasonably priced pastries and bread. It's not really in direct competition with Jewel/whole Foods/Trader Joes. It's like a jumbo Village Market Place on Dempster with sushi and wide aisles

Hi- I have been to Village Market a few times. I personally don't care for their parking lot, and their store is kind of crowded. I prefer Market Place on Oakton to that. I don't go there a whole lot though either. I went to the Evanston farmer's market today and I spent $19, but I bought four ears of corn, a quart of peaches, a pint of organic blueberries, a half a pint of organic garlic, a pound of organic potatoes, and a pint of apricots. I got the apricots for $2 because they were ripe, and she threw in three Lodi apples for free as well as a ripe peach. I think I am set for fruit for this week and then some, although I might go to the Tuesday market at the Y and get some more corn. I m am still working on the kohlrabi that I got for $2.50 last week that is the size of a bowling ball. I would rather spend my money at the farmer's market, because I know the farmer is getting all the money, and not lots of middle men. I noticed that there was a farmer there selling New Jersey peaches though. At least he was honest about this. This same farmer sells Red Haven peaches in September, when I know they are not Red Haven. The Michigan peach crop is smaller than usual this year because of the extremely cold weather we had back in January. Thanks, Nancy

Went for the first time today and it is like a giant Marketplace on Oakton. Lots of weird euro stuff, like a whole aisle of strange cookies, wafers and junk food. Variety meats like rabbits, kidneys, lambs tongues. A whole organic chicken for $24! Mild Italian sausage $3.49/lb but hot Italian sausage $2.49/lb, not a typo according to the "butcher". Really really weak beer and wine selection. Cool bread aisle with lots of different ethnic stuff: ryes, pita, focaccia.

Except for the super wide aisles, I was pretty disappointed. It isnt really comparable to Marianos, Trader Joes or Whole Foods. It's probably a notch above the Jewel on Chicago Ave. It seemed like it was way more space than they need.

But still it's nice to have choices and its a great time to be a grocery shopper in my hood.

Hi- I agree that it is a giant Marketplace on Oakton. The only things I buy when I go to Marketplace on Oakton is produce, and some dairy. I used to buy Natural Bread of Manitowoc bagels when they were an outlet location for them and I could get them for $1.50. Now they are regular price there. I don't think Valli is trying to compete with Jewel, Whole Foods or Mariano's. When I went to the Evanston farmer's market today,they were as busy as they usually are. The farmer's market does not work for people who are cheap, and are strictly looking for deals, whereas Valli might. When I was at the farmer's market last week, a woman complained that somebody's cherries were $9 a quart. Those type of peole usually go there once, and never come back. The same person that was selling cherries for $9 a quart, sold me a pint of ripe apricots today for $2, and threw in a ripe peach and three apples.

At least parking is not going to be a problem at Valli. I wonder how well they will do there. The place was not super busy yesterday considering it was their grand opening. I am interested to see how much business Whole Foods is going to take away from the Wilmette Jewel when it opens up on Wednesday. That Jewel might lose more business than the Jewel on Chicago Avenue is going to lose with Valli opening. I can't figure out why the Chicago Avenue store doesn't get their act today, and improve their produce section at least, considering they are right across the street from WF.

One thing that Valli has going for it is that the produce is more affordable than any other place in Evanston, and that might mean that people there buy more produce than they would otherwise. I am not sure how much organic produce they are going to sell there though. Most of their customers are not going to be willing to spend the extra money on it. I also noticed that customers there yesterday were buying a whole lot more fruit than they were veggies. Most of the people that were purchasing veggies were buying lettuce, potatoes and corn.

I wish Mariano's would have opened up in Evanston, but I don't think Dempster and Dodge would have been the right location for them. THanks, Nancy

I remember Valli's store on Golf Road in Mount Prospect 20 yrs ago. It was primarily cheap produce and some ethnic dry and canned good offerings. Then it expanded and the prices got higher. Like Produce World, you have to know your prices and really check out the quality. Produce World is cheaper than the chains but it has been my experience the produce has a much shorter shelf life. I do not think that folks who shop at Whole Foods will be going to Valli and vice a versa. Same with the Evanston Farmers Market. I am not a fan of Marianos as I think there is nothing special about its produce. I will check out Valli soon (BUMMER re the poor beer selection) and compare it with Market Place-a store I just can't figure out.

I was surprised that Valli didn't carry any Temperance beers, when the brewery Is only a few hundred yards to the west. (I know they have to deal through distributors and whatnot, but I would have thought they'd make an extra effort to stock such a local beer.)

Hi- I wonder if Temperance has approached them? Temperance might be too high end for them though, I am not a beer lover though, and so I am far from being an expert on it.

The person who said they did not like Mariano's produce. I think their produce section is better than average, and it is fairly reasonable. I didn't go there a lot though until they opened up the Skokie store. It has been at least a month since I have been there though. When the farmer's market is open, I don't buy any veggies in the grocery store, and I don't buy a lot of fruit. I have been buying Western cherries at Whole Foods and Jewel when it has been on sale

NFriday wrote:Hi- I wonder if Temperance has approached them? Temperance might be too high end for them though, I am not a beer lover though, and so I am far from being an expert on it.

Temperance is distributed by Glunz, which sells many other beer brands to Valli.

Good point re: Temperance beer not being stocked. I am a beer geek and with the explosion of craft beer, a well stocked beer selection requires some thought and knowledge of the varieties of products. Id like my grocer to not just check off a box on the distributors form "basic supermarket beer/wine plan A". Curation for lack of a better word.

Taking this a step further, I feel like of alot Valli's inventory is just poorly curated. Like who decided to carry $24 organic chickens but not Temperance beer? Who decided that they should offer an entire aisle of euro cookies wafers and junk food? Kidneys, hearts and chicken feet? So what if they have huge display cases of apples, they are still washington red delicious and granny smiths, just more of them. What customers are they aiming for? The bubushka crowd? This neighborhood is not that demographic.

This place has alot of physical advantages like the wide aisles and easy parking (and generous Evanston subsidies), I hope they make it but to me alot of the stuff they sell is not something I would buy much and I live a few blocks away.

Hi- That is one thing I noticed that they do not have nearly as much ethnic produce as Marketplace on Oakton does. Does anybody know if the owners of Valli are Greek? They did have quite a few different kinds of feta cheese. The $24 organic chicken was a whole chicken? I looked at their chicken, and I saw some humanely raised chicken breast for $6.99 and some organic B/S chicken breast for $9.99. I can't see most of their customer base paying $9.99 a pound for chicken. That is what they charge at Whole Foods, and the chicken is probably a lot fresher at WF.

Hi- I just went to the Valli Produce website, where you can leave comments. I told them that there were things I liked about the store, but that I thought the store was not well planned out. I said they need to carry more ethnic produce, and I also complained about the fact that they were keeping their potatoes in a refrigeration case, and there were many potatoes that were in the clearance section, because they turned green because they were mishandled. I also told them that I thought there clearance produce was priced way too high. I also asked them if they were trying to target Greeks and Polish people, because there aren't a whole lot of them in that neighborhood. I also suggested that they come at look at the comments about the Evanston store here on lth. I hope things change for the better at the Evanston store. I encourage other people here to leave comments on their website about the store. Hope this helps, Nancy

Hi-- I just got multiple failure to deliver message emails. I have a yahoo email account, and apparently they have a thing against yahoo, and they would not accept it, and so I hope other people that don't have yahoo accounts, have better luck than I did. THanks, Nancy

NFriday wrote:Hi-- I just got multiple failure to deliver message emails. I have a yahoo email account, and apparently they have a thing against yahoo, and they would not accept it, and so I hope other people that don't have yahoo accounts, have better luck than I did. THanks, Nancy

maybe try posting on there Facebook page which might get a you reply: https://www.facebook.com/valliproduce

Does anybody know if the owners of Valli are Greek?

Not by a Calabrian mile. . .

Went to Valli Produce in Evanston yesterday. Since it's the opening week, they have some great prices on fruit and vegetables. It's worthwhile shopping there for the next few weeks just for the deals. Nice store.

Hi- I want to remind Seniors that live in the Evanston area, that Valli's has 10% off for Seniors on Tuesdays. BTW-The Evanston Lakeshore Art Fair is going to take place this weekend at the lakefrom in Evanston, and Valli is going to be one of the principal sponsors. The Ethinic Art Festival which recently took place would have been a better fit, but it happened the weekend before the store opened up. Usually Whole Foods is one of the sponsors of the Lakeshore Art Fair, but they are not involved this year, which kind of surprises me, since they are opening up their new store on Green Bay this Wednesday. Whole Foods has some grand opening specials at all of their Illinois stores in honor of the grand opening, but I am underwhelmed by the sale. Hopefully there will be some more grand opening specials taking place at the Green Bay store. Hope this helps, Nancy

I grilled that mild Italian sausage I got from Valli and I was disappointed. It was very bland, not sure it had any fennel in it at all, worse than Jewel. Sigh...I had high hopes for this new store. I guess Ill still be traveling to Minelli's on Milwaukee and Oakton for the closest decent homemade Italian sausage.

Hi- Have you tried Whole Foods or Mariano's for Italian sausage? I've heard that the quality of the sausage at Mariano's depends on the store. You should really leave a comment on their website though about the sausage. Hopefully you will have better luck getting past their anti phishing software than I did.

BTW- I looked at the ad for the Evanston store for the second week which starts tomorrow, and the sale is underwhelming. Yes they do have some good deals, but it is on stuff that you have to cut out a coupon in order to get the deal, and you have to spend $25 in the store. The only thing I saw that looked interesting was the milk for $1.99 a gallon. Hope this helps, Nancy

Yeah, I like Marianos and Whole Foods Italian sausage a lot. For me, they are in the next tier down from Minelli's and Bari's. Homestead Meats on Chicago near Dempster has excellent sausage as well. Of course much more expensive than a supermarket.

Ill try and send my comments to Valli...I do want them to succeed, in spite of my initial disappointments. Im feeling like they maybe didnt do much market research on our neighborhood.

Hi- I went to the Evanston store expecting to get the 10% Senior discount, and I was told at checkout that the Evanston store does not have a Senior discount right now. The person in charge of the front said that the store was going to have their official grand opening on August 19, and maybe after that happens they will start offering the Senior discount. I got there around 6:00 this evening, and the store was not super busy, but for some reason they had 9 check out lanes open, when five would have been adequate. When I entered the store, I wanted to get a small gelato, and there was nobody at the bakery/gelato department. I then looked for blueberries, and all they had were blueberries from Mexico, and so I took a pass on those, and ended up getting some more cherries. I then went back to get some gelato, and there was somebody behind the counter, but she was waiting on another person who was buying a ton of cookies, and had lots of questions. I finally gave up, and did the rest of my grocery shopping. I then went back again to get some gelato, and they had two people behind the counter, and so I got waited on right away. I was going to buy something at the deli too, but the wait was too long, and so I gave up. They should have taken some of the cashiers, and had them working in other departments were they were needed more.

my email through their website comment section was returned in failed delivery error as well.

I live just a couple of blocks away, and finally stopped in today on my way home from the Saturday errands. Nice refurbishing of the old Dominick's, and a good grocery store is welcome in the 'hood, but man, their pricing is all over the map. Limes were ten for a buck, on par with Supemercado Morelia or Marketplace on Oakton, but their precut watermelon, for instance, was way, way pricier than that offered by Whole Foods, Treasure Island, or the Grand Food Center in Winnetka (and none of those joints are exactly giving it away, either). They need to make a fast correction on staffing levels, too - too many knots of young employees standing around and yukking it up instead of helping customers, kind of like Fresh Thyme in Deerfield.

I'll wait a week or two to revisit, and let them get their sea legs before I go back. It's interesting to watch that very large strip mall slowly coming back from the dead. . .