Hy-Vee

Update – Hy-​Vee is still offering fuel saver purchase points for gas discounts at PDQ. With the recent dip in gasoline prices and fuel saver points accumulated in the last 30 days, my wife paid $.58 per gallon at the pump today. Filled up the family SUV for less than $ 10.

Gonna give the Westside Hyvee a 3 ½ star but rounding up because the food quality is pretty good and their staff is friendly but there are always long lines and the Starbucks is not very friendly and often slow. I enjoy their Chinese food station however there are some inconsistencies with some of their dishes every time ago. However, the staff is always nice.
Their produce is fresh and I like how they have a lot of pre-​made, marinated meats. The seafood is also always fresh and the staff nice and helpful.
The lines are always long though and they never have enough open. There is always a manager helping direct customers but I’m always moved and then the line I was in was actually faster. They also rarely have baggers on their lanes either or it is someone super slow. I wish they also had self check out. It might make lines go smoother. The cashiers are always nice though, especially a couple of the ladies that always work the express lanes.
My experience at the Starbucks in Hyvee is always kinda ehhh. One time they had no coffee brewed in the morning, maybe they ran out but they guy said it wouldn’t be long but it was long. And then he gave a pretty blonde girl a coupon for having to wait but what about this pretty dark haired girl over here? I had to wait too, remember me? Then when the coffee was ready they filled up someone’s reusable cup who had just ordered. Needless to say I was late for work. I’ve also had an experience where there was only one person working, taking orders and making drinks. I felt bad for the guy but I ordered brewed coffee and then he took like 3 more orders and then started making a frappuccino and making espresso drinks? I get he wanted to go in order but get people their brewed coffee quick and move on, its common sense. Now this might not be a Hyvee problem but they are located inside and there was no option to just Unilocal Starbucks.

I love Hyvee West! Most of all I like the diverse and friendly staff. I feel like staff actually want to talk to me and say hello.
Don’t get me wrong usually I’m fine grabbing my k-​cups and some mac and cheese running out never saying a word to anyone but the genuine friendliness in the aisles and at the register often makes my day :) Thanks Hyvee West!

Hy-​Vee does some things well, and does some things not well. I find that if I stick to the things it does well, then I really enjoy the experience. If I try to ask it to do something it’s not good at, then it’s not quite as good.
On the positive side, the prepared foods section is really good, and the meals in the Chinese and Italian section are great. My wife and I have an 8-​month-​old daughter, and it’s nice to be able to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things we need and get a «dinner out» of cheap Chinese food that’s actually better than most of the takeout places in town.
The store also does a good job of stocking some interesting items, like my favorite protein bars that are actually made in Pittsburgh, but are still available here. The store brand products are generally of good quality and are offered at a good price.
The store’s greatest strength is probably the employees. For a big corporate grocery store, it actually has a lot of small-​store feel to it. The employees are very nice and helpful, always willing to listen to questions or concerns, and don’t ever give me the impression that they’re put out when they have to deal with me.
There are two major negatives that I would point to. One is general in Hy-​Vee as a chain, which is that I feel the prices are a little high and the rewards structure is a little weird. I’d rather have better sales than gas rewards. The second minor quibble is that there’s a lack of casual seating unless you want to sit in the café. The Fitchburg Hy-​Vee does a good job with this. They have a big casual seating area and you can grab something to eat and drink and sit there for a bit. The only casual seating (indoors) at this location is by the Starbucks kiosk, and I feel a little bit weird bringing my food over into that area and not buying something at the Starbucks.
Overall, though, good store. I really enjoy walking around in here for some reason.
EDIT: I forgot to put in the thing that actually made me decide to write this review. The breakfast buffet on weekends is absolutely awful. For $ 15, it’s even more of a kick in the shins. My omelet was totally brown on the outside and undercooked inside, the biscuits were doughy and not completely done, and the selection of sides was pretty uninspired.

Pros: Decent clean café with friendly service for cheap eats. Great place to bring the family so each can choose their own type of food for dinner. Store is clean. Not too crowded. Lovely selection of prepare sandwiches and salads with both average and upscale choices. The produce is better looking than most grocers in Madison with reasonable prices. The staff is polite.
Cons: Register problems — one evening I had to go to three different lanes. Natural food selection is quite small. Generally priced the same as Whole Foods, but then doesn’t offer case discounts.

I’m a regular at Metcalfe’s but seem to be the only person I know who is! I support them for the employment of individuals with disabilities. I have previously enjoyed the blues/​soul/​roots music stage at Metcalfe’s Brat Fest. Between what I’m told are premium prices and doing away with the blues stage in 2015, I’ve been shopping around.
Today I was in the area of the west side Hy-​Vee. I’ve visited here to buy ‘just a couple things’ in the past as well. Consistently its time consuming to do just that. The store is vast (think big box store) so it takes time to get to where you’re going and find what you need. This is a good store depending on your intent. For a quick in and out, go somewhere smaller. You need 30 minutes here minimum. On this visit I found myself going up and down the aisles a couple times to find the snack area I was looking for. So the layout IS working for Hy-​Vee, keeping a customer in the store longer and them picking up things they don’t need (think Minions sugared cereal because your kid walked by it twice and there’s a MINION IN THE BOX), but its not efficient for the busy shopper.
Pluses are its spacious entrance, produce is organized neatly, its well lit, clean, moderate temperature, and is fairly quiet. One of the things that gets added to my ‘just a couple things’ intended list is something from the bakery. They are smashing it! Donuts, angel food cake, the cold pie slices in the cooler on the left, and the PUPPY CHOW are all delightful!
Also, this store offers cooking classes to further customer engagement. I have not yet procured food from the café and hot bars but they look ample and inviting.
Workers offer assistance when you appear to be looking for something, and make conversation at check out. Today I was thanked by the bagger for doing business with this Hy-​Vee! There is a diverse age and race range among the staff. However, Hy-​Vee, I want to see people I know have a disability as employees in visible roles! Contact me if you aren’t yet connected locally on how to make this happen!
In summary, this is a corporate chain store. As such it has that standardized synthetic vibe (or lack of vibe). The atmosphere is comfortable but not overly inviting.
I’m withholding one star until Hy-​Vee ‘localizes’ by diversifying the employees a bit more, and finds ways to be charitable, or make the store more intriguing.
Feel free to comment if you have specific questions!

I really don’t enjoy grocery shopping in general, but I’ve come to rely on Hy-​Vee for a consistently good experience. I have a few issues with this location, but the bottom line is that the excellent customer service ensures that I will always return.
I used to think their prices were too high for my everyday needs. Then I started paying more attention to the weekly ads and realized that they run a lot of excellent sales. Their prices often beat the competition, and I can rely on a decent cycle of sales on things I buy regularly (cottage cheese, yogurt, produce). The fuel saver program is outstanding. They make it easy to accumulate significant savings because they pair the weekly sales with fuel saver promotions. I also love that there is a long list of gas stations at which the savings can be redeemed, as opposed to some franchises at which the money is only good at one gas station attached to the store.
The hot deli counter has a lot of options, and the best part is that they’re open late enough to be useful to me (9:00 PM).
I agree with the reviewers who comment on the store’s layout. It’s not necessarily atypical (dairy is allllll the way in the back), but it’s not always logical either. For example, recently I was searching for the tortillas that were listed in the sales ad. I found tortillas in two other locations before I found the ones on sale in a third location. Why wouldn’t all tortillas be in the same place?
As I mentioned above, the customer service is what sells Hy-​Vee to me. The staff is unfailingly polite and engaged. A few days ago I was in a pretty neutral mood walking into the store. An employee who happened to be walking by the carts stopped to talk for a few seconds. It wasn’t odd or insincere; it was just a nice extended greeting that put me in a decidedly good mood for the rest of my shopping trip. I can always count on the cashiers for a positive, interesting discussion as well. I can’t stress enough that this happens EVERY single time I go to Hy-​Vee, no matter the time of day.
I would only like to see two small changes to the Hy-​Vee experience. There are almost always one or two items that appear in the ad that don’t exist in the store. One item (Cottage Doubles) appears week after week and the store has never carried that item.
The other issue is that as friendly as the staff is, they are often unfamiliar with the store layout. Every time I’ve asked for directions to a particular product they have been unable to locate it without doing the same wandering I just did. This is particularly true with items in the sales ad. I can understand not knowing where every single thing is, but it’d be especially helpful if they paid special attention to familiarizing themselves with the sales that are being offered that week.

The Chinese food it’s amazing! One of the best ever. Also a great price for some great food

Honestly, I only shop here where there’s a special sale of some kind but when I do, I’ve been overall quite pleased with my experience. The store is clean with plenty of variety, including a decent health and organic department. I appreciate the one-​stop-​shop concept of this grocer, offering an in-​house restaurant and coffee shop, catering, fresh takeout meals, huge deli, bakery, food tastings, pharmacy, dietician services, and more.
Unlike other markets, the Hy-​Vee staff seem more readily available and friendlier which is nice. Although their regular prices can’t compete with Woodman’s or Aldi, they have a clean, spacious layout with plenty of services and products. I recommend stopping in when they have a special sale and checking out their pizza and other meal options.

So I’ve begun to shop at HyVee more and more often lately. I usually visit the east side store in Madison and I’m always pleased with my experience. My cousins are west siders and they rave about the west side HyVee, so I checked it out today.
First thing, the music is waaaay too loud and obnoxious. I mean seriously! It smacks you in the face when you walk in. It was very distracting while I was trying to check out the store. The layout, prices and most everything seems very similar to the east side store. The free wifi would not connect, however.
One thing many people have remarked on is the great buffet and dining area food available to eat in-​store. I strolled by to see what the offerings were, and there are definitely a lot of them. I’ll come back when I have time to have a meal. Meanwhile, they were offering samples of three different types of chicken. I grabbed a toothpick with a piece of sesame chicken, and instantly regretted it. It was a cold rubbery Chicken McNugget that tasted like it had been dipped in sugar syrup. It was coated in sesame seeds, but I could not taste them. I literally had to find a place to spit it out.
The highlight of this visit was a lovely lady named Charly who was my cashier. I asked her about the fuel rewards program, and she went into so much detail and gave me so many good tips for how to maximize the gas discounts for my purchases. I am always so impressed by the cashiers at the east side HyVee, and now I see that west side is great, too.
Four stars, but turn down the music and I’ll make it five. :-)

Better than some of the other Hy-​Vees in the area for some unknown reason… As Ashley shared, it’s still much more expensive when compared to Woodman’s, and about on-​par with Metcalfe’s. I won’t even mention the store whose name begins with «C» because I really, really dislike that franchise. :-)
+ Clean, well lit, open, airy
+ Intuitive layout
+ Quest nutrition bars! Yay! I love these things and can rarely find them in brick-​and-​mortar stores
— Checkers and baggers are a bit unfriendly
— Pricing… Absurdly high
— Limited selection when it comes to certain items (eggs, especially)
I’ll keep shopping at my usual haunts, unless I need my Quest bar fix.

Shopping at Hy-​Vee is a bit of an experience. It is such a huge store with so many different things to offer that it really has something for everyone. I don’t do my grocery shopping here but I am completely addicted to their Chinese food. It is a great value and is usually pretty fresh. They also have a great liquor section that could really be its own little store. The service here is also really great! Everyone that I have interacted with has been very pleasant.
I have also been to their Sunday brunch a few times. I seriously think that it is one of the best values in town. It is $ 15 and you have access to their entire hot bar. This means that you can have bbq, chinese, american, Italian, salad bar, and whatever else they have. I have actually come here simply for this and have not been disappointed!
It is obvious that Hy-​Vee puts a lot of effort into ensuring that the customers have a great experience at this location.

The prices are reasonable, the store is clean, and the employees are friendly. It’s not quite as cheap as Woodman’s, but better than Copps and less expensive than Metcalfe’s.
The specialty cheese selection is excellent. There is a fulltime cheese staffer here. Housemade fresh mozzarella is made here once per week.
The produce section is pretty good although smaller than Metcalfe’s. For example, I once searched for Beets and they didn’t have any. Hy-​Vee is the only place I’ve seen selling Hatch peppers (seasonal).
Deli meats&cheeses are pre-​sliced, which is not really my thing.
The seafood selection is very good and the meat selection is good too. Many varieties of brats, sausages, marinated chickens, and kabobs. If you are looking for a very high end steak type thing, I wouldn’t recommend Hy-​Vee, there aren’t a lot of options. Small selection of grassfed beef and bison available.
My primary complaint is how they arrange the store, sometimes item locations can be very odd. Try locating the Mexican chorizo as a challenge.
The seating situation confuses me. Hy-​Vee has a sit down restaurant&bar with a small limited food menu. It also has a cafeteria style selection of hot food (Chinese, American, pizza/​pasta, etc). Cold salad bar and prepared cold meals seem unremarkable. The Chinese-​American food is what you would expect, I have not tried the other foods. You can buy your food from the cafeteria style line and pay for it but the seating is all inside the restaurant area. So sitting in the restaurant area with the food you already purchased seems like it’d be really awkward – there are servers, but you don’t need them, so are you supposed to tip???
The sales situation here can be a bit odd at time – they have these tags saying «Red Hot Deal» but you look at the original price and it’s the same! The Red Hot Deals tag means nothing. Once a month on Tuesdays, they have a 2 hour sale of completely random products, some of which can be a very good deal. I recommend checking ahead for these deals on their Facebook the same day, although they can also give you a flyer with the 2 hour sale foods. The FB daily deal can also have good finds – just tell the cashier you are using the Facebook deal. They have an amazing deal on Weds, 15% all items in the Wellness section.
Once I had a complaint about the rotisserie chicken, so I filled out the receipt survey and got a very prompt response from management and they sent me a gift card. When they first opened and didn’t have enough pita bread, they remedied it based on customer feedback.
Overall I’m happy that Hy-​Vee is my primary grocery store.

Great location, delicious breakfast and awesome waitress (Katelyn). I like to shop here. Always nice and clean. Also great selection of beer.

This place bridges the gap between Costco and Metcalfs for people who want nice things but can’t afford them.
More importantly, they have one of the best alcohol selections in town– their bourbon selection is as good if not better than Steve’s, and theyve got a ton of local and regional beers. Good stuff.

I’m not a big fan of the store itself. For such a large place, it didn’t have a large selection of items. Their soda aisle was lacking. They push their off-​brand items cheap, and sell brand-​name items for what you can get them for at a smaller, local grocery store. I wasn’t impressed. If I lived near it, I’d probably shop there by default, but nothing is drawing me in for my weekly shopping…
HOWEVER, the food court was amazing! The choices! The quality! It took me one lunch to figure out how it all worked, but outside of that, it was super. Their Asian buffet was really, really good. We opted for the buffet over the 2-​entrée meal — for an extra $ 1.50, we could sample everything. Knowing what I know now, I’d go back and get the 2-​entrée meal and still be plenty stuffed… I really liked the chicken egg rolls — you could see the meat, and they weren’t too cabbagy. The sesame chicken was fantastic, too.
I appreciated the dining area for eating in. Carrying out would be just as slick when in a hurry. I will eat here again (and again… and again…). Prices were quite reasonable.

So happy this place opened if only for the Grand Buffet at lunch. I don’t know about the weekend buffets, but my Dad and I are very happy about the Grand Buffet. For a price you would pay at some fast food places, you get to pick and choose at a well-​stocked salad bar, the hot bar, and fresh fruit. The hot bar has a server that dishes up what you want, usually meatloaf with sides, chicken, fried fish or baked fish, or something similar. Also, included in the price of the Grand is the Chinese and Italian food bars. Even more inexpensive is the Chinese buffet bar by itself. It must be popular, as I see many people getting just that. The dining room is very clean.
The only thing is if you go in late to lunch, you may find the server that takes your drink order disappear. I would not suggest getting coffee if you want a refill.
The rest of the store is fantastic to walk around in on a cold winters day. The Hy-​vee brands of products are moderately priced and they are always having sales.

2 stars for the seafood counter.
2 stars for the dining area auto server/​waiter staffing (see below for why)
5 stars for the location
0 stars that my initial posting and review got quashed because someone else created this listing and more folks kept checking in so this became the official one. And yes, I was there on opening day making this new add.
Seafood: my brother pointed out a stark difference in age, texture and usefulness in the catfish and ¹⁶⁄₂₀ shrimp that I bought from this location.
1) The catfish was fatty and old. It should have been refused at the distributor level.
2) The shrimp had been thawed and refrozen several times and HE WAS SHOCKED That I let them give this to me at the counter. Well the shrimp were limp not fresh and tender. The shrimp were dingy and not the colorful as they should have been. They shrimp were clearly frozen multiple times after being thawed which was overwhelming because I was ready for dinner.
Needless to say, I returned them. 5 stars on how the service was handled. It went over very well.
Dining area — my sorority sister complained about it but i dismissed her. Well, the same Tuesday I bought from the meat counter. I got a call and needed to send out some work so I can to the dining area to get the emails off from my laptop. I felt guilty and bad for not dining because the servers count on any seat taken to make income. The young man was mannerable, attentive and understanding. I tipped. Yep! I felt the need to do so as I’ve waited tables before but the more I thought about it — why is the eastside is seat and serve yourself but the westside is «let’s be fancy’ and we must serve you. At opening I thought this was cool but through practical use — I feel it’s a bit much. And comes as classicist when you know good olé’ Madison.
Location = perfecto. The build out, décor, aesthetics are all working. In and out location replacing part of the old strip mall. Great! Not far from Hilldale as well.
So all things considered — beware when you go to the seafood counter. Yes, I’m from Louisiana and I’m not that kind of picking when I’m this far from water to get fresh shellfish BUT at the same cost per pound as Whole Foods — I expect more. I mean really $ 13/​lb is a special price not the regular price so the quality should keep up with the pricing.
Today, they’re running that $ 13/​lb special pricing again with the tag «Responsible Choice» which can lure one in but heed the warning and look elsewhere.

It’s a new Hy-​Vee at the corner of Odana and Whitney Way. It clean, it’s employee owned, it’s based in Iowa and the selection and prices are pretty damn good. Certainly two notches above Coops, calmer than Woodmans and cheaper than Metcalfe’s.
Totally worth checking out. For their opening month special, they’re offering fresh Copper River Sockeye for $ 12/​lb. That’s as cheap as you can ever find it on the West Coast and it’s some of the best Salmon on the planet. I know where I’ll be shopping all month.
A great addition to West side food shopping.

OMG YES! I’ve always been a fan of Hy-​Vee but seriously the Hy-Vee’s I’ve been going to are nothing compared to this Hy-​Vee!
THERE IS A BAR IN THE RESTAURANT. Yes a BAR. And they serve Spotted Cow! But they were out when I went there but still, A BAR WITH SPOTTED COW!
Ok can you tell I am not from here? Because they probably sell Spotted Cow everywhere but when I can come up from Chicago ad hit up Hy-​Vee, I can now get a Spotted Cow! Oh they also have TVs in the restaurant. Seriously I’d never leave this area had I been going to school here. Grand Buffet + Bar + TVs + Internet Access + Electrical Outlets at every table + Single room bathroom (multiple single room bathrooms) = My second home had I lived here.
Madison, you really scored big with this new Hy-​Vee. I mean I just popped in to charge my phone and figured I could find an outlet and wow I kind of don’t want to leave haha.
Second to review too!