Smart & Final

Gotta like this place. Definitely, not where I do all my shopping but some nice deals and different products and sizes I haven’t seen elsewhere. My one con like and store I got to is I hate lines because it seems crazy I am waiting to give you money. But overall I visit mostly on weekends or favorable hours on weekday as I have learned. It also coincides with traffic for this area.

Big store. Brightly lighted. Squeaky clean. I don’t really shop for food here, ’cause it ain’t groovy /​organic enough for me, except:
My 16 year old cat pukes up everything but Gerber turkey baby food (I shit you not). Safeway price $ 1.99 for a tiny jar. Smart & Final price 99 cents. The cat goes through 60 jars a month, so the savings is real.
Camarena tequila 1.75 liter bottle. Liquor store price $ 32. Smart & Final $ 22.
Yeah, that’s my life; baby food for the cat and tequila for me…

Things they have there that NO ONE ELSE HAS
BUBBIES PICKLED TOMATOES — omg, if you love Bubbie’s Kosher Dill Pickles, you can finally buy the tomato version here. It used to be at Oliver’s but hasn’t been in O’s in years.
Their produce prices are great, cheaper than almost everywhere.
I am making garlic spaghetti using garlic powder — Whole Foods price for Garlic Powder? $ 13.99 a pound aka 16 oz. SMART & FINAL price? $ 14.99 for 40 ounces! Bascially 3x the amt that WF is charging in their bulk section.
So, yes this place is AWESOME!

I just found out about this store and even though it’s a little out of my way it’s still worth the drive. The prices here are great. They probably have the best deals I could find anywhere actually. I love the fact that they sell a lot of things in bulk like Costco but they have have the long lines. The customer service was great and the produce was fresh and the meat department was amazing. Love it!

Terrible Management, I received email coupons for Viva Paper Towels in my email.
I printed them out and tried to use them here, because their scanner could not read the bar codes they would not honor coupon, how embarrassing that they had to call the Manager over for a $ 1.00 coupon and he did nothing at all but said the same thing.
I will never shop here again, it’s not about the $ 1.00 which I think Smart and Final can afford, it’s the fact I was treated like I was trying to scam them with a $ 1.00 coupon.
Get a grip and some learn what customer service is all about. This store is always empty, now I know why.

So glad to have an option to Food Max in this part of Santa Rosa. The service is friendly, the selection of items good and the prices very reasonable. The «store brand» items are good quality and comparable to «name brand» items. They have Costco size items but also items for those of us that don’t have a massive family or tons of shelf space for industrial size cans. Their produce is good and well presented.

Great Store — doesn’t even make sense to rate this low — people are friendly, the produce is fresh and at a great price. Massive store — it’s a big box store with fresh produce — you’re not going to find everything there but you can definitely feed a family for a MUCH MUCH DISCOUNTED Price.

Check the date on food here. I have seen expired items on the shelves and many other items will soon be expired. That kind of thing is unacceptable. It makes me feel like the management knows this but chooses to make money off these items anyway. I’ve seen expired humus, and I accidentally bought a huge tub of salsa hoping to have for a while that expired 2 days later. I made that same mistake with Turkey lunch meat. I bought enough lunch meat to make sandwiches for 2 weeks. When I got home and looked at the date, it was to be used or frozen by the next day. I tried to use it but it turned green befor 3 days were up. Yuck and no thank you. I wanted to like this place, but that’s a big turn off.

I don’t get it. If you’re shopping for one, or, really, any group less than 10, don’t bother. What really put me off is the lack of any local products, especially eggs (nothing local at all; all the eggs were in styrofoam packs) and dairy (where’s the Clover?), meat and bread. It all seems like it was shipped up from LA. I didn’t recognize many of the brands of dry goods either. Normal day-​to-​day stuff was not any less expensive than, say, Safeway. This is hardly Costco-​like but I guess if you want to buy 10 little bags of Lay’s, you may like this place. I often go to Costco to get big lots of produce for juicing — S&F didn’t have that. The only reason why I’m giving them two-​stars is because the checker was super helpful and nice — he pointed out that organic avocados were on sale and less than conventional. Score!

It’s been years since I frequented a Smart & Final when I lived in Fairfield. I finally made it into the new SR store this week and was very pleased with what I found.
Great prices on produce and meat! Clean store, nice employees who actually know their products. I was able to buy 90% of my weeks grocery shopping in one stop which made me very happy, and felt that the prices I paid for everything were reasonable. I’ll be back.

Great Store! Biggest I’ve been to in its chain. The store was clean and lots of options. It would be four stars if they had more checkers.

Great prices on their produce. They also have a good selection of merchandise. Only negative is they get the Walmart clientele which we all know can be funny and concerning at the same time.

In my eyes it is just another chain grocery store. The few things different are:
–They offer bulk sizes on certain products
–They have certain types of supplies that other grocery stores don’t carry (think cafeteria type stuff)
Other than that I can’t really say that their prices are much better if at all than others. Nothing exceptional stuck out.

I’ve never been to another smart and final so I don’t have anything to compare it to. They’ve got a mix of Costco size products and regular ones along with some restaurant supply materials. Pricing was hit or miss, I wasn’t impressed by amazing deals. As the place is getting a lot of new customers right now I’d wait a while before going because the line wrapped around the store last weekend.

This place is AMAZING. Was there on their Grand Opening night. It was chaotic. It was absurdly busy. But, it was organized. Holy crap, was it organized. We pulled up and the parking lot was PACKED. We expected that though as it shares a lot with other businesses. They ran out of shopping carts, but had a contingency plan in place — they borrowed carts from other businesses, presumably with permission. When we entered the store, we found perhaps one of the most immaculate produce departments I have ever seen. Right off the bat, I see amazing deals. Strawberries for $ 1 a pound. Bananas for .39 cents a pound. Yellow onions for .25 cents a pound. Other then the strawberries, there was no minimum to buy, which was nice. As we ventured through the store we saw a plethora of products. Eggs for .89 a gallon, Salmon for $ 5.99 a pound. Oh, and 12 packs of Heineken Blue Moon and IPA for $ 9.99.
The line was HUGE. It literally wrapped around three-​quarters of the store. But, it was organized and service was QUICK. We got in line and it moved quickly. No more then 15 minutes in line.
They had it roped off so people didn’t cut, some big wigs were walking around the line, mingling with customers, helping to kill the time. Smiles all around. They even had a couple of portable express lanes set up to expedite the process even more.
This is like Costco prices without having to pay membership fees.
Oh, and the best part? The sell the best baseball hot dog on the planet. DODGER DOGS.
That right there ensures this Dodger fan will return once my stockpile of newly bought Dodger Dogs runs out.

Parking lot was crowded but since it is shared with other stores (like Bed, Bath and Beyond and Michael’s) it was still easy to navigate and a spot was easy to find to park.
The staff was diligent about bringing back carts, since when we walked up, there were about 5 and instantly snatched up. We turned around to find another and a staff person walked up with a cart and gave it to us.
Just then I looked up to see an older couple walking out and the wife said to us «Oh good, there are two of you. One of you get in line, while the other should do the shopping».
I kind of thought she was joking until my fiancé came back from the bathroom and said «The line for the cashiers literally wraps all the way around the store. I’ll go get in line.»
So I loaded up the cart with some decent deals … red organic chard for $ 0.99 a bunch and other greens like collard, kale, etc for around a dollar to two dollars. Got a 12 pack of eggs for $ 0.89 (made sure to check them as they didn’t at checkout). Silk Soy milk for about $ 3, half gallon of milk for $ 1.99 and the best deal of all?! 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA for $ 9.99. No way, and then since we’re going camping … a 30 pack of Coors light for just under $ 18. Chips like Nacho Cheese Doritos and Lays Salt and Vinegar for $ 1.99 for full sized bags. I also got a full regular large size jar of Olive Oil Mayo for $ 1.99. My fiancé’s favorite? Whole Chickens for $ 0.79/pound. You get a full chicken for like 4 bucks, Costco is usually at least $ 1.29 for the same chicken.
I can’t wait to go back. Such good deals! And it was amazingly streamlined, they even told us which checkstand to go to in order to expeidiate the process of check out.
My only two complaints? The girl at the checkout pawed all our veggies individually pulling them out of the bags to check the tags, like she didn’t have the numbers memorized or didn’t know what they were. And she overcharged me for the red chard. It was supposed to be $ 0.99 as it was organic, but the regular was $ 2.49. Yeah I know, it was only like $ 1.50. I called the store anyway, and they said to just bring in the receipt and they’ll fix it.
I mean, it is opening day after all. And yes, today only you get a free reusable grocery bag. They also have some cool large ones for only $ 0.99.
Definitely get your butt over here. No membership fees like Costco but prices definitely compete. And you don’t always have to buy the big portions.