My sister lives in Pheonix and often shops at Sprouts, which is like Whole(paycheck) Foods but much lower in cost. There are four in CA - In Claremont, El Cajon, Torrence and San Marcos. I don’t know if any of those are near you, though.
StG
Torrance is right next door- I’ll have to check it out!
Our coop has excellent meat. So does the “luxury grocer” (in Minnesota both Kowalski’s and Byerly’s/Lunds are ‘luxury grocers’) The cheap grocers…not so much.
friend Xanthous
I live in Omaha, and drive past Omaha Steaks on my way to work every day. About four blocks away from Omaha Steaks is a small butcher shop where I buy most of my meat.
In terms of what will happen if you return it, IME I have always gotten a cheerful refund or exchange (sometimes double the money) when I had to return bad meat. This meat was spoiled, not just poor quality, though. Also, it was at regular grocers, not warehouse stores. But they don’t seem to want to ask a lot of questions when you’re standing there at the front of the store with a bag of allegedly bad meat. I have to think a cheerful refund is in their best interest unless they have some reason to suspect you of fraud.
Mostly I know this because of bad experiences with the “special” organic meat sold by Lowes Foods. Yeah, I no longer buy that. I think it was just my local store not keeping their cooler set cold enough, but YUKKK! And the fact that it had no preservatives probably didn’t help.
A friend of mine who is a dedicated WF shopper got food poisoning from some sausage there. So I don’t think there are any guarantees, even if the quality is generally good.
I try to focus on stuff I can inspect in the packaging and taking things from the coolest part of the cooler.
I got some fresh pre-seasoned “lemon and herb” rock cod from Whole Foods last week. It had way too much salt for my tastes and had a fair amount of bones. The bones I could handle, but the salt was a deal-breaker, I’m afraid. I won’t be buying any more pre-seasoned stuff from them.
As Mrs. WeHaveCookies doesn’t eat any fish, I seem to constantly be craving it whenever I see some in the store, and every couple of weeks we cook ourselves individual meals so that I can indulge. Much more often than that we either eat out or get take-out and I often get my seafood fixes then as well, but I seem to have amnesia about that once I get within 50 feet of a fresh fish display. 
ETA: And as for beef, as I posted a few months back, we buy half of a beef each season from a neighbor who raises free-range grass-fed stock. MmmmmMMMMMMmmmm, though a lack of freezer space almost kept us from making the purchase. We were able to barter with our landlords for some beef in exchange for half of their extra freezer.
I see them all the time at Smart & Final, dunno about quality however.
Buy your meat from a butcher, you will save money in quality and value in the long run.
Another vote for the local butcher, as a source of advice as well as good meat. A great example happened to me a few months ago: I was in one local butcher buying a variety of stuff, and noticed they’d got rabbit portions available. Having never cooked with rabbit, I asked what he’d suggest doing with it. Off the top of his head, he reeled off an entire recipe for rabbit pilaf, including a suggestion for which additions to make which can work well with the rabbit meat (I wouldn’t have thought of apricots myself!)
HEB doesn’t go outside of Texas that I know of, though, and I’ve never heard of CM going outside of Austin. Unless they have a location in Dallas or San Antonio or Houston or something.
For a special occasion, I would go with the local butcher. Mrs. Know got last year’s holiday turkey from the one near our place, and I have to say it was better than anything I’d bought at a supermarket.
Red-meat-wise, I’ve tried WF and was very disappointed with the quality of the meat weighed against the price. WF is indeed way overpriced, even when stuff is on sale.
Does your local megamart chain have a fresh (meaning not pre-packaged) meat section? Our local Albertson’s (which I know you have in SoCal) has good cuts of steak on sale weekly–NY, ribeye, sirloin–and the quality is as good as anything I’ve bought at a butcher’s for half the price.
Don’t like fish, so I can’t help you there, but my friends who do tend to frequent the local Asian markets.
I’m not sure if you have them in Cali, but we have a chain called Sunflower Market here in Vegas. Similar to Trader Joes and WF with lower prices. One thing they do exceptionally well is sausage. They make their own in at least a dozen varieties, and very often they put them on sale at incredibly good prices. For example, this week they have all their pork sausage varieties for $1.99/lb. except for bratwursts–they were on sale for 99c/lb ! I grilled a couple up last night and I gotta tell ya, they were 10 times better than those Johnsonvilles at 4 times the price!
We’ve always had good luck with meats from Costco, but if you want to try their steaks again, buy some and keep the receipt. If they’re not good, take them back for a refund. One of the things we love, love, love about Costco is their awesome return policy. If you buy something, and you’re not happy with it, you take it back! But I doubt they’d take back this particular steak unless you have the receipt or original packaging. It’d be far too easy to buy crappy meat at a local supermarket and go to Costco demanding a refund, just because they have a liberal refund policy (not saying you would do this, just that I don’t think they’d take it back as-is because of the possibility).
I have good luck with meat from Harris Teeter, generally. What I will often do is ask the meat counter people for a slightly different cut of steak, so it at least gets cut up in front of me. I also chat to the guys there each time I go, so I have developed a degree of rapport.
Supermarket pork, on the other hand, is alsmot invariably crap, having been bred to be so lean it has no flavor. If I really want pork, i will often buy organic.
HEB has expanded the Central Market concept in the following locations:
Austin - Central, 4001 North Lamar, Austin TX
Austin - Westgate, 4477 South Lamar, Austin TX
Dallas, 5750 E. Lovers Lane, Dallas, TX
Fort Worth, 4651 West Freeway, Fort Worth, TX
Houston, 3815 Westheimer, Houston, TX
Plano, 320 Coit Road, Plano, TX
San Antonio, 4821 Broadway, San Antonio, TX
Southlake, 1425 E. Southlake Boulevard, Southlake, TX
I’m back to report that I checked out the local Sprouts- love it! The assistant mgr of the butcher dept there came and introduced himself to me (I must’ve looked a little out of place, furiously typing prices, descriptions into my Palm) and gave me a “tour” of all they have to offer. Walked out with some great chicken “bratwurst” that we’ll be grilling up tomorrow night for dinner, and some great looking thick-cut smoked bacon.
After that I visited the (relatively) local meat market that I’d heard of but never been to before. Had a nice long conversation with the butcher there about where their meat comes from (somewhere just north of LA) and what they have to offer. I asked why the fish case was empty (it was morning), and the butcher said, “Hear all that cutting/hacking in the back? All the fish for the day just came in and they’re readying it to put out.” I almost fell over.
Looks like I’ll be getting my poultry from Sprouts (they have a bit bigger selection), and beef/pork from the meat market.
When you look, you will find! Yay!
Thanks, all for your input, especially you StGermain, for turning me on to Sprouts. It’s a great place, and what an experience to actually be approached by the asst mgr and indulged in some good, old fashioned customer service!
xanthous - I’m so glad you were please with your experience! My sister shops there regularly. For other dopers, there are stores in AZ, CA and TX. Their website is here.
StG
xanthous - I telked to my sister last night and she said that Wednesday is the best day to shop at Sprouts, because their ad goes from Wed - Wed, so on Wednesdays you can take advantage of two weeks worth of specials. She also said their custom freshly-made sandwiches are wonderful - huge and only $2.99. One sandwich can feed two people. And they make 12 different fresh sausages every day.
StG
Wednesdays it is, then! In fact, on my first visit, I picked up 2 chicken sausages- fresh and big as bratwurst! We’re going to grill them tonight for dinner with corn on the cob and a tomato/grilled onion/balsamic salad I make. I can’t wait!
They seem to have a much bigger selection of chicken and chicken products (like the wide variety of sausages) than the meat market I found, so Weds for Sprouts, Sunday for meat market!
I buy whole NY strips at Costco all the time. They’re ony around $8.00 a pound, and they cut up into steaks pretty easily.