If you are into food and never leave your cave, you will be surprised to know that The Fresh Market opened in Latham today. I love going to new super markets. I didn't write about it, but I was horribly disappointed in the Davenport, Florida super markets outside of Disney.I just can't believe locals do their weekly shopping there.
I didn't go to the actual 9 AM opening. I love new super markets, but not enough to use vacation time. So, I stopped on the way home. The place was packed at 4:15. So packed, that it was more of a once around the store look, than actually going shopping. The store looked nice. Produce looked good (better than what is in most local markets). The prepared foods looked good. Everything looked good. In fact, I would say this store is nearly identical to the one I visited outside Raleigh, North Carolina.
The main goal of the visit was go quickly poke around, grab some stuff that could go on the grill and get out. I saw some very nice apricots that the kids would love - grabbed 4 of them. The prepared food counted had a line that was 10 people deep. Peeked at the case and moved on. The seafood counter was packed - didn't really even get a look. There was a lady heating and passing out crab cake samples as fast as she possibly could. Missed that too. Looked good though. The baked goods looked nice. Meat counter looked good too. I don't buy beef out (got half a cow in the freezer), but there were several cuts of veal, pork, chicken and lamb. They actually had a flanken cut of short ribs. I've only seen that in Asian markets up here. Several kinds of prepared sausage. I got 3 kinds of chicken sausage and 1 turkey sausage to try. The 3 chicken sausages were much better than the turkey sausage (nothing special about that one). Wandering into the cold section I saw a few kinds of yogurt that I never heard of. In the home good section, I grabbed some cheesecloth - I'm was out of it. And with my 3 items in tow, I wandered over to try and check out.
That took a little while. And with nothing to do, I turned into that guy on his cell phone. I was talking to my buddy Joe. He and his wife are starting to freak out about having a kid in kindergarten. The idea of their kid being on the bus scares them. Anyhow, we talked for about 25 minutes (he's got a long commute) and then I was at the register.
I am pleased to have another market in the area. I expect to be in this one regularly. I am also curious to see how their pork tastes in homemade sausage. I also hope the Times Union article today is correct in theorizing that if this store succeeds, others like it will follow. Based on today's turnout, people want this store around. Maybe we can all coordinate days to go shopping there. The "everyone in the world show up on Wednesday" won't work in the long run.
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I went when it was less crazy. I was expecting a larger store, but overall was quite happy with it. To me, it seemed like a Trader Joe's and Whole Foods combo.
ReplyDeleteSolid butcher and misc expensive foods items, but their seafood counter was a bit small, and I was sad to see non-sustainable fish at the seafood counter.
The prices on some veggies was fair, but I would have liked a larger produce section. That said, I got some delicious organic grapes for $2.49 per lb.