Francisca W.
Yelp
drove by many times but never stopped the car in the area to go in. finally, tonight is the night.
dinner companion and i went in for a post-meal peek, thinking the avocado was 2/$1 (crazy, right?) according to the sign. turns out, it was 2/$4 -- the glare made the "4" look like "1" from afar. ha!
since we were already in there, might as well do a round. they have a decent variety of offerings, from a couple shelves of wines, personal hygiene items, deli counter/prepared food, to your regular produce, meat, and dried goods. couple raw seafood items available.
in general, regular priced items seem a bit high ($7.99 a wrap smaller than a burrito, $9.99 pre-packed salad that doesn't look enough for a meal, $2 avocado in late summer/near fall), but then it is the heart of South End after all. sale items are in fact quite enticing, but I would be discerning of the quality. it appears the shop puts things on sale not because they got a big batch and want to attract customers, but for the practicality of getting rid of soon-expiring items. but hey, if the price justifies a slight compromise on quality, then sure, go for it.
i was actually tempted by a big chunk of pork butt tonight at $2.49/lb - a good slab of meat that can easily feed 3-4 for only ~$8. butttt (ha), a quick purvey of the meat section got me hesitant: many of the meat (no sale either) looked... "aghast". seems like they were at a stage in which that pretty meat pink glow had begun to give way to a washed out brown-gray hue. also, it's not just one or two packs of them that looked like that, either, but a good number in the entire open fridge. so even the pork butt that's been staring at me didn't look bad at all by itself, i started to doubt how their handle/rotate they meat products in general to result in this rather unappetizing scene. so...pass!
swung around to the produce area... stuff looked ok, but i wasn't quite paying attention as i had no plan for food shopping at the moment. organic grapes were on sale at $2.99/lb -- or was it $1.99?? -- either way, a great price. but the grapes looked a bit tired and bruise-y. so there, you get what you pay for. Nelly's free range (not organic) eggs are currently at $2.99/dz. pretty good deal. but after the round, i say make sure you check the expiry date.
despite being "stuck" in a local grocery store on a Friday night working a shift, the cashier had a smile on her face and was not afraid of human connection. my friend is the chatty type, and the cashier was a good sport, so kudos to that.
i guess foodie's is the type of store that i'd be grateful to find in the middle of nowhere when i need a quick trip. but it will hardly become my go-to for all the reasons listed above.
bonus: there's a sign that says parking in the back.