Grocery Stores

[tomh009]

From the CBC:8 places where you can buy groceries in downtown Kitchener

At first, I was pretty pleased with this article. There are lots of food places downtown, many more than is implied when people whinge that there is "no grocery store."

Really, though, all of these places listed are either speciality, a narrow range of goods, expensive, or a combination of all three. They are great places, but it would be challenging to manage on a modest grocery budget using them.

I agree their selection of choices is not ideal--shoppers, central fresh, the market, new city and other groceries might have been worth highlighting more than some listed, or perhaps just list all, there are no limits on paper. 

I do think you are hard pressed to shop in downtown for say the prices of food basics or something.  You may be able to do it but not at the shops mentioned.  But I think it is far too easy to believe you will save 10 bucks on your weekly groceries by shopping at food basics and then spend 10 dollars on a car share/taxi/Uber/even transit (not to mention your time) just to get there.

Staples like Milk and eggs are very reasonably priced at SDM, and if you watch the sales (reebee!) you can find lots of things at low cost. I was originally hoping for much more from J&P, but in the end I have mostly bought just bread there -- and even for that, I'll go to Golden Hearth if they are open that day. SDM has turned out to be a far more frequent destination for us. And New City/market especially for vegetables.

Sobey's is about a 20-minute walk for me, I'll go there from time to time when the weather is good.