Mercado Gonzalez Northgate opening, "Wegmans" or "Bristol Farms" of Hispanic grocery stores

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Romr123
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Re: Mercado Gonzalez Northgate opening, "Wegmans" or "Bristol Farms" of Hispanic grocery stores

Post by Romr123 »

We had a wander through this afternoon---what an amazing place.

The description of Wegmans is a good one...with a sprinkle of Jungle Jim's and Stew Leonard's too.

The dry grocery section seemed a bit constrained--had good Mexican sourced things but seemed a bit limited on US brands/types/sizes. The separate pay for bakery was a little annoying, but is certainly the custom for those types of bakeries embedded in supermarkets.

It's got the charm of a market in Mexico but with the sanitation of the BEST of the US...as said upthread you could eat off the floors. Not a breath of unpleasant odor (frying chips/meat taint/fishy odor) anywhere in the store. Festive and fun!
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Re: Mercado Gonzalez Northgate opening, "Wegmans" or "Bristol Farms" of Hispanic grocery stores

Post by ClownLoach »

Romr123 wrote: October 21st, 2024, 7:49 pm We had a wander through this afternoon---what an amazing place.

The description of Wegmans is a good one...with a sprinkle of Jungle Jim's and Stew Leonard's too.

The dry grocery section seemed a bit constrained--had good Mexican sourced things but seemed a bit limited on US brands/types/sizes. The separate pay for bakery was a little annoying, but is certainly the custom for those types of bakeries embedded in supermarkets.

It's got the charm of a market in Mexico but with the sanitation of the BEST of the US...as said upthread you could eat off the floors. Not a breath of unpleasant odor (frying chips/meat taint/fishy odor) anywhere in the store. Festive and fun!
I thought about the bakery setup and I think it helps the main checkout process. The previous "flagship" in Anaheim has the same self serve concept and you bag it up and take to checkout. I have come to realize that from a sanitation perspective it is not always easy to manage a large variety of baked goods in flimsy plastic bags which are necessary for the cashier to see what you have. Bags spill in the cart and now your product is ruined. Or the items get hit by other items in the cart and now your cookies are crumbled. Or the cashier who has touched raw meat and who knows what else has to open paper bags to look inside and count items. Not good options.

Here the separate bakery line moves very fast, your items are boxed up neatly and nested with tissue paper pretty well, and you don't have to worry about damage after. The fewest number of employees I've seen staffing the bakery counter is 3 and it was after 9pm; the bakery itself was still fully stocked and the large window into production showed there were at least half a dozen bakers prepping items for the next day. I am so used to understaffed counters of all types that I have a preconceived notion that it's going to be a hassle, but it never is. And as long as they keep running the store this way it will be fine.

I think the most impressive thing is that it hasn't slipped a beat since opening. If anything, execution is even better as they've upgraded a few things and also added in some of the features their regular customers expect from the mainline stores. I hope they are looking around for a few more locations; they don't need to over expand the concept but I think there is room for one in San Diego, one in the IE around Rancho Cucamonga/Ontario to draw from a large territory, and maybe two or three strategically placed in LA County. It could be argued amongst that location list they're already in the toughest possible site being in Costa Mesa. All the next locations will make even more money. The only problem they'll have is finding sites large enough in the correct location, because I think they could easily add on another 20,000 Sq ft or maybe more to new stores.

It absolutely shatters every stereotypical expectation. Beautiful store, super friendly and helpful employees, incredible quality of product.

The first "dine in grocery store" that actually has excellent food since Eataly. Everything I've had has been delicious and prices are fair. Not cheap, but restaurant quality at a fair takeout price. I don't know anyone else who compares. Sorry but Whole Foods tacos are not good... Or really any other supermarket attempts at dine in anymore. When Whole Foods landed in the middle of OC with their attempt at a similar store they also had about a dozen dine in concepts and at this point I think all are gone and they rented out the majority of their space to Mendocino Farms, the fast growing organic sandwich place. The reason it failed and all those counters scaled back wasn't Amazon, a lack of traffic or demand... The food just wasn't very good so they burned off the customers.
Romr123
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Re: Mercado Gonzalez Northgate opening, "Wegmans" or "Bristol Farms" of Hispanic grocery stores

Post by Romr123 »

The benefits of the bakery the way they have it certainly outweigh the (minor) inconvenience. In Japanese supermarkets (I'm most familiar with Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights, IL) it is the same process (tray and tongs, separately rung) except there it's clearly outside the checkstands (where at the Mercado it's within the flow of the main sales floor).

Their boxing/bagging is high-end and tidy. (stuff isn't going to get crushed/ruined, especially with the small shopping carts).
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