I’m into no-frills, no-nonsense commerce. But I have to say, the Aldi food store near me is just plain creepy.
Stopped in there for the first time today, and immediately felt as if I’d entered a Stalinest era hardware store. Very bleak and industrial looking.
And while I’ve often complained about how TV or radio follow us everywhere these days, I found it the silence in Aldi eerie. I left without buying anything.
Is it just me, or is Aldi a disconcerting place?
“Austere” was the word that leapt to mind when I first went into my local one.
But what annoyed me most was that there was no express queue. I would happily have bought the cheap loaf of bread had I not been expected to wait for twenty minutes.
I only went once, and was very disappointed. Poor selection and the prices weren’t all that better than anywhere else.
I wouldn’t say “creepy,” but it did look like a store that was holding off bankrupcy by its fingernails.
I’ve only been a couple of times but haven’t been impressed. Maybe I like the wine and roses of my local grocer more than I thought I did…:eek:
Isn’t that the chain that bought out Trader Joe’s?
I think it’s mostly the color of the store, but every time I walk into one I feel like I’m in the 1970s. I’m 32, so my memory of the 70s is limited, but the way I recall, stores were less flashy except with their use of loud colors, but they were more like a warehouse than today’s Walmarts with the constant music, employees every 50 feet, and perfect lighting everywhere. Of course, I was raised in a small town, maybe that’s just how it was there. So I’ve never found Aldi “creepy,” just kind of trapped in time. Of course, I haven’t gone to one in the last six years since I moved.
The design/layout of the Aldi store doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the brands they carry. I’ve never seen them anywhere -but- at Aldi’s - where do they come from? Are they any good? Based on personal experience, it can be hit or miss, especially in the taste department - do NOT buy any lime-pineapple frozen fruit bars. They were -nasty- and that’s putting it mildly!
I personally don’t like it but I can see where people with lots of little kids would. It’s pretty inexpensive, right? My sister goes there because she buys tons of cereal.
To me it’s a small version of Sams Club or one of those places that sells all the huge sized food. I went there once and never again.
Depending on mileage, cost / gal. of fuel, time allotted I get the best deal on the stuff I want where I can. I know what I like and have good luck with in each store and will go there for those items taking into account coupons and member card discounts and how it flows into the route taken for the other shopping. Aldi’s or Ablertson’s, Sam’s and Wal.Mart, corner grocery or home stand on a country road, makes no difference to me. I get what I like at the best cost in an overall trip.
There are certain days to stay out of any store, welfare check day, Social security check day, the 15th and the end of the month, Saturday some and Wednesday in others. A feller should know these things…
YMMV
Many of them are packaged specifically for Aldi, but by the same lines putting the same food in the same cans as other brands, then an Aldi-specific label is slapped on it. Some of it is good, some not-so-much. (And yeah, the lime-pineapple fruit bars were dreadful!)
They’re bringing more “high-end” stuff into our Aldi’s, including organics and a higher quality line called Contessa, or something like that. Pretty good stuff. Still stay away from the jarred pasta sauces, although the Spaghetti-o’s knockoff has improved a whole lot over the last ten years.
Canned fruit for 25 cents a can? American slices for 89? String cheese for a buck? I’m all over that - it’s toddler paradise, and no worse than canned fruit, American slices or string cheese anywhere else! Add in things like canned kidney beans, pinto beans, rice, basic pasta, and even frozen stuff like frozen chicken (whole and boneless skinless breasts), ground turkey chubs for a dollar or two and, oddly enough, the most authentic Irish Bangers I’ve had outside Dublin, and I’ll shop there at least once a month. Their old slogan (“The stock-up store.”) is exactly how I shop there - it fills my pantry with a lot of staples.
It does lack a certain something in ambiance, however. But when you can get steel toed workboots for $20 for a kid who grows two shoe sizes a year, you forgo some frills.
We have them in the UK too. Austerity is deliberate - it’s just pile it high sell it cheap, German style. The brands are Aldi-specific but made by someone else. It’s absolutely superb for staples like pasta, rice, bread, milk, cheese, and meats. Some of the candy stuff is really good too - I got some lovely German Christmas gingerbread and Stollen this year.
I would be a little freaked out by their “health” products though: I would not buy their toothpaste or vitamins. And definitely not their condoms.
If you don’t understand how it works feel free to pay 4 times as much for lower quality products somewhere else. I go about 4 to 6 times a year and save heaps. Mind you I’m not going for atmosphere or ambience, I am buying products.
I wasn’t really sold on that aspect of it. I’ve been twice, and both times I came away disappointed. The prices weren’t that great, the Aldi products were disappointing (dishwashing liquid 20% cheaper that is 50% water - I don’t think so), and as a person who hates supermarkets at the best of times and is screaming to get out, both trips to Aldi resulted in a necessary subsequent trip to my regular supermarket to pick up the many, many things I needed that Aldi didn’t have.
But the worst (and creepiest) part was the “Aldi people”. It was like entering a cult and feeling like an outsider. You needed to be an Olympian to load the products onto the belt fast enough not to have the speed demon cashier standing their waiting and clicking her tongue disapprovingly, but not only that, there was a queue of “Aldi people” waiting behind me clicking their tongues disapprovingly. I also had a four year-old boy with me who loved to be the one to load the belt, and I had him crying because I couldn’t let him do it at his speed.
Aldi is weird, unwelcoming, and unpleasant, and I’m not about to set foot in one again in a hurry. And Franklins is as cheap.
Trader Joe’s is still privately owned by themselves; they are not bought by anyone, so far as I know or can tell from their web-site. Thank goodness.
And not just because they’re blue and yellow with orange stripes.
Interesting. In most cases I’m a practical, no-frills type of person, but when it comes to shopping I’m willing to pay a little for ambiance. Case in point: Wal-Mart. There’s some good stuff to be found there, and I’ll concede that you can often get better deals than at Target or a mildly upscale grocery store. But you couldn’t pay me to shop at Wal-Mart. The stores (at least the ones around me) are messy and dirty, items are strewn around on the floor, the lighting is terrible, the other customers shamble around like zombies. IMO, having a pleasant experience is worth an extra $5 or $10.
I don’t go in for ambience. I like Teutonic efficiency. Aldi’s is a good store with good products and my SIL has health inspected their warehouse and says you could eat off its floor.
I’m with you on Wal-Mart - although Target is generally of a higher quality as well. Wal-Mart’s more accurately compared to K-Mart. I’ll drive a longer distance and pay a few bucks more at Target for a better product, and that’s influenced by Wal-Mart’s stores. But that’s because Wal-Mart, unlike Aldi, actually has *negative *charisma points. It’s not simply a lack of good ambiance, it’s like they go out of their way to be bad. As you say, dirty, cluttered, ill-organized stores. Aldi’s not like that, it’s just…Spartan.
Ours are mostly in depressed neighborhoods, and, as such, tend to be depressing places to go. I’ve been known to pick up cheap lettuce, green peppers and carrots for the guinea pigs there, but prefer to do most of my “people shopping” organic, which my Aldi’s doesn’t carry. And by the time I add in my time, its usually not terribly cost effective. And ours don’t tend to be kept clean.
However, I am glad they exist, looking at the shoppers in the store its pretty obvious that grocery budgets are tight for these people.