Mlle B.
Yelp
The walk-in cooler is the size of Delaware. Bring a coat if you plan to spend more than a few minutes staring at cheeses as big as bus tires.
Restaurant Depot has two kinds of customers: Fast and Slow. The Fast ones have to hustle back to restaurants and stores. They know precisely what to buy and where to find it. I look for them and step aside as a courtesy, and I also watch out for forklifts.
As a Slow customer, I love gawking at the huge variety of foods, supplies, and equipment. Where else can you find palletized Nutella or something labeled "whole half goat"? A lot of Restaurant Depot merchandise is packaged in mass quantities, but I find many items in sizes for a small gathering or family. We buy for a concession stand, sporting and school events, and home (family meals and entertaining). Most prices are a true bargain, although it pays to know prices in the other stores you frequent. Some items are sold only by the case, but others by the partial case--read the label.
To join Restaurant Depot, you must have a business license. You must check in with a Restaurant Depot card and also use it when checking out. To my knowledge, this place does not offer boxes or bags. They do not accept coupons.
The "carts" are big U-boats--not desperately clean--so bring a box if you will be buying lightly packaged foods (the cognoscenti hang their bagged bread or wrapped-up goat from the top bar of the U-boat). When we get back to our vehicle, we transfer items to inexpensive stackable restaurant busing tubs, which we bought at Restaurant Depot. (These containers are fabulous for toting everything everywhere, and I suspect that a preschooler could use one as a sled.)
Pots and pans, knives, cutting boards, and many other equipment items here are far less expensive than retail, and often of better quality. If you're buying pots and pans for home, do some research first to make sure they will work on your range and in your oven.
Restaurant Depot advertising circulars will help you find bargains and spot merchandise from Laffy Taffy to lobsters. Many items are visible on shelves, but some are on loading pallets overhead. I've had good luck asking employees to help me find things and tell me, say, how many minutes it takes an electric urn to boil 100 cups of water for hot chocolate.
And finally: if you worry about earthquakes, do not look up and think about the amount of stuff on the shelves.