I’m out of a few spices and was going to order them from penzeys.com, but I remembered that recently the company has been opening several bricks and mortar stores. One is a somewhat easy drive from where I live, but not super close.
Has anyone ever been to one? Are they well-stocked?
Indeed I have. The Dallas store is about 5-10 minutes from my house, and on the way to work.
As far as I can tell, they have every single thing in the stores that is listed in the catalog, and plenty of each.
The really cool thing is that for most spices and herbs, they have jars of the spices handy so you can smell them. Really useful for things like spice blends, or spices that have multiple variants like cinnamon.
The only annoying thing is that they’re only open to 5:30 on weekdays, so I have to either go during lunch or haul ass over there in traffic to make it by the time they close.
Yes, they have one nearby. The store smells amazing. Seems really well stocked and is fun to wander through.
I’ve been there. Concur about the semi-shitty hours, but damn does it smell good when you walk in that door! 
Knowlegeable staff, plus you can sniff and even sample things before you buy. They carry reliably high-quality stuff, too. Around the holidays (and hell, probably year-round) they sell little boxes with spices/herbs that complement each other - the Other Shoe and I have found they make excellent gifts, esp. for people you don’t know all that well. (“You … eat food, right? Here’s something to make food taste yummier.” “Thanks!”)
Yes, I go to the one in Woodmere, Ohio*, every couple of months. I like that the employees don’t bother me, but are available for people who need help. Clean, bright, and well stocked.
*Cleveland suburb
Yes, there’s one in my town. It smells like all spices mingled together.
Yup. I went to one in MSP some years back, and there’s one right here in Portland over on 82nd. Well stocked, and you can’t get out of there for under $50.
Yes, fun, fun, fun! And they have free recipe cards and always give me a free magazine. I love Penzey’s, and I think the prices are on par with the supermarket. It is hard not to spend way to much on weird stuff though. I have an unopened jar of wasabi powder that I have no clue why I bought or what to do with it. And the inside is what I think a general store in Little House on the Prairie would look like.
I’ve been to the one in Raleigh and concur that the aroma is amazing. They are very well stocked. Go in and get some free sniffs.
Their home store/packaging place used to be about three miles from our house. They bought an old factory about 5 miles from here. I haven’t been to the new factory but they have maintained a store in the neighborhood. It smells like what the spice ships coming back from the Orient must have smelled like. It smells of possibilities and the cultures of the world. It is one of my favorite places to go. I don’t think I have bought a spice in the grocery store in 10 years.
It’s a nice store. I would call it overpriced, though. I’d go there only for specialty items. For most spices you can get them in good quality and dirt cheap at an ethnic Indian market.
But if there’s one near you, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t just go there instead of asking here first.
It’s not that near. Gas is $3.77 a gallon. I didn’t want to drive all that way just to find out they were out of some of the spices I wanted, and then belatedly discover that they weren’t in the habit of staying well stocked up. I’m glad I asked here; everyone assures me that that isn’t the case. Thanks for the input, everyone. I think I’ll see if their brand of ranch dressing mix is superior to Hidden Valley’s, as long as I’m there.
Overpriced in comparison to places like ethnic markets, but in the same ball park as garden-variety grocery stores, and with much better quality.
I like Penzeys primarily because they have interesting things that the normal stores don’t have, and their stock is quite a bit fresher- their specialty items actually move, while the juniper berries in the average Kroger have been there since 1975.
Plus, my wife and I glued a bunch of small, powerful magnets to all of our old plastic small Penzeys bottles, and stuck them on the side of the refrigerator. Now we just buy the larger sizes and refill as needed. Beats buying a new bottle every time!
I’ve been to the one in St. Paul a few times. I like to go around and smell stuff. They have some interesting mixes too.
Love the one here in Omaha…have bought lots of things after I ran out from the mail order end of it. I did learn to buy the small jars instead of the large ones (for cabinet space and also because they were going bad faster than I could use them all). Definitely go!
Call 'em up. I’m sure they can tell you over the phone if they’re out of something. They won’t be, though. 
There’s one fairly near us and I love going there. They have display jars of all the spices and you can open and sniff to your heart’s content :).
I assume they have pretty much anything the catalog has.
Our closest store is over 2 hours away and well worth the drive. Try the Vietnamese Cinnamon. You’ll never buy grocery-store cinnamon again.
Penzey’s is wonderful. I buy all my herbs and spices there because I want them to stay in business. They’ve never been out of anything I needed.
But I concur that if you want to make sure that they have something, you could call them. Their employees are always extremely nice.