Aldi’s Grocery Store

I have been meaning to write this review for awhile, and have only been holding off because I want to make sure I do it right. Maybe it seems silly considering this is a grocery store, but I think we all know, Aldi us NOT your typical grocery store.
So! Once upon a time in a land far far away (Germany, it was in Germany) the Albright brothers made a grocery store. However, these brothers had different ideas on how they wanted this business to run, so they split up, and opened more stores independently of each other. Both of these stores eventually crossed over to the US. The other brother is the one we can thank for bringing us Trader Joe’s.
Aldi (originally named Albright Discount, in case you are wondering where the name came from) has more than a few practices that seem bizarre to typical American shoppers, but these are ideas brought over from their German roots to help deliver not only savings, but better quality at a lower cost. That shopping cart requires a deposit in hopes that you will return your cart to its proper location, and your groceries are unceremoniously dumped back into said cart for you to take over to that shelf along the wall and bag yourself, to save the cost of labor. This does not mean that Aldi treats what employees they do have poorly, as it is common knowledge that their employees are paid quite well.
Then there is the product itself. Very rarely will you be seeing name brands here, this store is like a generic Kingdom. That being said the quality of these products has gone up significantly from years past, and lately there have been not only more organic offerings, but also gluten free items, and a huge push to have all of their products be as free of dyes, chemicals etc as possible, essentially lining them up to compete with the likes of Whole Foods. (Which, if you are like me and lack a rich husband and disposable income, Aldi is the far more sensible choice!) They also offer impulse «Items of the Week» which are various other non edible offerings that change all the time. These items seem strange until you remember there were children that had encyclopedias from Jewel (I should know I was one of them!)
At some point I should get into telling you about THIS Aldi, huh?
I believe this may be a physically smaller store than others; I know for a fact it is smaller than the location I previously frequented in Chicago. That being said it is also the cleanest (and most consistently so) location I’ve been to, and they do a fantastic job of keeping product stocked and organized. The only off-​putting things about coming here, are that if you have particular shopping habits, people will point them out (I shop for a large household and often just say «yes» if people ask if I run a restaurant or am cooking for a small army) (and really this is just human nature and if you already buy a lot of certain products when you shop, you likely run into this behavior wherever you go, so you may as well spend less money at the end of your trip) and unless it is a really slow day, it’s not the best place to run in for one item, unless you realize you will be waiting in line for a bit.
When all is said and done, I definitely recommend this store! If you don’t already own reusable shopping bags, buy some of theirs: they are huge and will save you on repeatedly buying paper or plastic ones.

I love this grocery store because it’s so cute. There’s nothing name brand there, which makes everything much less expensive than other grocery stores. The only downside is because it’s so small, they don’t have everything you may need. Some days they have asparagus, and other days they don’t. Most of the vegetables come packaged but fresh nonetheless if you go at the right time of day. They have most of the basics. I love this store :)