2025, Business, Family, Food, Gatherings

Super Mercado!

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I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity.  Well, count YA and I as the outliers.  For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.

Our favorite is Trader Joes.  We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores.  We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good.  Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.

The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years.  A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized.  When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria.  Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner.  Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening. 

The grand opening was this past Saturday.  Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party.  And it was CROWDED.  The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1.  Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise.  And forget getting a shopping cart.  Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.

Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words

There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find.  A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows.  They even have a Currency Exchange office.  The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli.  The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks.  You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up.  Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.

Anyway, YA and I had a fun time.  We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us.  But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!

If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?  Any good grocery shopping stories?

44 thoughts on “Super Mercado!”

  2. We, too, are grocery shopping fanatics. There are no Trader Joe’s in South Dakota or in our corner of Minnesota, but there is an Aldi nearby. There also is this deli, butchershop, and restaurant combo in Sioux Falls called Looks Market that is terribly fun to visit.

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    1. We also shop at Aldi‘s. A few things that I’m just happy to spend less money on. And YA cannot stay out of the aisle of shame. We almost never buy anything there, but she likes to look at all of the stuff.

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        1. Aldis has a half an aisle, both sides, of seasonal stuff. I don’t even have a better word for it women’s slippers, smelly candles, popsicle makers, wooden cutting boards, blankets, seasonal yard stuff. I’m stuck because there’s so much stuff none of it food stuff, that is there and it’s only there for a short time. Once the item is sold out, they don’t restock It’s kind of an Aldi’s thing and it means that every time you’re in the store, the items there are a little different than the items that were there the last time. I started seeing it referred to as the aisle of shame online a couple of years ago. Obviously Aldis doesn’t call it that but other people do. I think because you probably wouldn’t buy any of this stuff if it weren’t in that aisle and it weren’t super inexpensive. Although to be fair, about 15 years ago, I found a very inexpensive stand mixer in the aisle of shame. It’s still running, knock on wood, while the kitchenaid purchased at the same time is not.

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        2. I suspected that’s the aisle you had in mind, but since I had never heard it called that I thought I had better confirm it. I have occasionally bought stuff there. My small cutting board that I use only for meat, came from there.

          One thing I find interesting about Aldi is how different the vibe of their various stores is depending on the neighborhood the store is in, and I suppose, by the stores management. I have shopped with some regularity in five different Twin Cities Aldi stores depending on what other shopping was on my agenda, and they differ even in some of the items they carry. Of course, the vibe of the store is created to a large extent by the shoppers that frequent it. The Aldi on University Ave. in St. Paul’s Midway area has a completely different vibe than the one on Franklin Ave. in Minneapolis.

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  3. I don’t really have any stories about grocery shopping, but I do find it interesting sometimes. I’ve only been in Trader Joe’s a handful of times. There’s an Aldi here, and I do go there sometimes, but I prefer the Co-op. We have a Mercado Locale in Northfield, and I’ve heard lots about it, but I still haven’t gone in.

    I was fascinated by the Mercado in Mazatlan Centro Historico. Everything imaginable was in there. The produce was excellent, especially the fruit. The butcher shops both fascinated and horrified me. There were flies everywhere and I’m sure that’s not all. Nancy bought fish fillets that had flies crawling on them for our supper. In the corner of the display was a severed pig’s head. There were shops with clothing, watches, phone accessories, gifts, and small toys. It was a noisy, congested maze filled with color and light.

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    1. The whole store for that matter. The non folks of color were seriously seriously outnumbered on Saturday. Made me think that our more mainstream grocers aren’t serving the needs of a big portion of our population.

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        2. It probably would’ve made more sense if I had said non folks of color. The Hispanics and blacks, and even the Asians outnumbered the whites. Big time.

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  5. My son lived in three towns in California. He found small versions of that store that served primarily Hispanic customers, but not exclusively. They also sold prepared foods that were delicious. They knew him by name at that counter. Of course, no such place in Boise. Hispanic grocers but not prepared foods.

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  6. Since I hardly get out and about anymore, I have not personally witnessed how the insane ICE raids are affecting our various immigrant communities in the Twin Cities. I live in a vibrant, racially diverse community with a fair amount of businesses owned and run by minorities. I do know that WESCO, a large and well established community organization, recently held some workshops on how to organize and resist ICE’s activities in the area. It’s an awful feeling to know no one is safe from these goons.

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    1. my daughters in chicago are deeply involved in protests. one teaches at a mexican community magnet school other is in training but will stay there when she graduates and its moderately mexican maybe 40%. ice is awful there

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    1. Oh, it’s quite the mishmash. And while you’re there, check out their lateral freezer, there’s a lot of good stuff in there, too. Trader Joe’s carries some stuff that Aldi doesn’t, but if I had to make a choice as to which store to shop at regularly, I think I’d choose Aldi. Trader Joe’s seems like gentrified Aldi to me.

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  8. I consider myself so fortunate to live in an area where there is easy access to just about every ethnic food and spice you can think of. Well, not quite, but almost. My food universe has expanded significantly over the years I have lived in Twin Cities.

    VS, I envy you that you’ll have such easy access to freshly made tortillas; they are the best.

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  9. Earlier I broched the topic of ICE at grocery stores.
    From my experience with Baboons, I know we will take every opportunity to shop at diverse stores. We love adventure in eating and enjoy considering from where we get our etables. Unfortunately, for many populations it’s not now an adventure but from where to get food and avoid attention.
    I cannot celebrate diversity without acknowledging it. It might be on the basis of language or appearance. I might be fooled by my eyes or ears but even then would love it! There would be no denigrating of the presenter involved; maybe my desire for more information to celebrate.
    As an old fat white guy, I am quite sure ICE will not target me unless I go to a tanning salon and beginning using my Spanish.
    Spouting off from Wes.

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  10. For most of the years after 2000 when we were in Taiwan, I did the family grocery shopping, though we left the fresh fruit portion of that to my wife, who is better at It than me. I went to various large supermarkets and got pretty much the same stuff every week, typically (for some reason) buying “in two’s”.

    Then we retired and moved to the USA. Sometime early in this adventure we went shopping together, and learned not to do that. When we entered the market, I went the “wrong” way. I also objected to the prices that were charged. My spouse, citing “we need it” or “I want it”, put whatever it was in the cart anyway. So, now we alternate weeks. I do not object to whatever she brings in nor to where she acquires it. I had ALDI down to a science, but about 4 months ago the local one was remodeled and everything was moved. I’m getting used to that.

    No matter which of us has done the shopping, I’m the cook. The system is not fair, but it works. I admit, though, that in the weeks when I’m not the shopper, we eat better.

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    1. I have three Aldi’s that are relatively the same distance from my house. I haven’t been in one of them because North of me and I usually don’t go north for shopping. The one that I favor also remodeled about 3 to 4 months ago and I also haven’t gotten the hang of it yet

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  11. This is way cool! Just now leaving a cheap grocery store. Followed in a daughter (8-10)and dad.
    She directed him about what to buy. Heard throughout the store.
    I spoke with him as we passed several times. I let him know of our current topic and he showed me pictures of his daughter doing rope acrobatics! The kid was energized on the Pepsi display! Thankfully, nothing was turned over.

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  12. We made a quick trip to Sioux Falls so Husband could get his left hearing aid fixed. (Luverne has no audiologists.) Stopped at Hyvee there and loaded up on skyr, fennel bulbs, and our Thanksgiving turkey. Found some Montepulciano Di’ Abruzzi wine. We only have one unpacked box upstairs, having stowed all the LP’s downstairs and the CD’s in a new media cupboard that got delivered today.

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  14. In a way, it started for us in the Twin Cities with the co-ops. Brown rice and bulgur and kasha weren’t exactly arch-ethnic foods but they were more worldly than anything most of us ate at home.

    Fifty years ago, we shopped for Asian foodstuffs at a place called Golden Star. If I’m not mistaken, that evolved into United Noodle Co., where we still shop.

    I used to have to travel from the near north suburbs of Robbinsdale and Crystal all the way to West St. Paul to Morgan’s to secure Hispanic ingredients and down to a little Vietnamese grocery at West Broadway and Washington Avenue to secure cilantro (labeled as Chinese parsley).

    My first exposure to Trader Joe’s was in the late ‘90s, I think, when my younger daughter was out in California with a friend’s family for an extended visit. She brought back some TJ’s Arrabbiata Pasta Sauce. I researched whether we could order any online and learned they didn’t sell products that way. When Trader Joe’s finally arrived in Minnesota we were primed.

    There are numerous mercadas up and down Lake Street, plus our local Cub stocks a good variety of hispanic goods. For Middle Eastern, there is Bill’s on Lake Street and Holy Land on Central. The La Perla tortilla factory is a few blocks north of Lake Street. There’s an Aldi’s near the Cub store.

    I do the bulk of the cooking at our house, the meal (dinner) planning and the keeping track of our food inventory. I do the bulk of my shopping at Trader Joe’s but reserve much of my produce buying for a more conventional grocery.

    I don’t think ketchup qualifies as a smoothie. Too much vinegar. More like a shrub.

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    2. Tut-tut, Bill, Morgan’s wasn’t in West St. Paul; it was on the West Side which is in St. Paul proper. In all fairness, probably only a West Sider would know this: West St. Paul is in Dakota County, St. Paul is in Ramsey County. West Siders live in the city; people in West St. Paul are suburbanites.

      Both Lake St. and Central Ave. have a lot of different small stores that specialize in foods from many different Asian, African and European countries.

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  15. VS – I think it’s way cool that you and YA have so much fun doing some of these things together!

    I agree with Bill about the smoothie question.

    I worked in co-ops in the late 70s, first as a volunteer at the Wedge, when it was still in its start-up phase (in the same building as what is now the Theater Garage), on Franklin. I eventually worked as a veggie coordinator when it was in the former 7-11 on Lyndale & Franklin, before they replaced that with the current building… I’ve very glad there’s a good co-op here, not sure what I would do without one around.

    I too discovered Trader Joe’s when visiting in California, and was elated when a couple of them showed up around Mpls. The closest one for us here is Rochester, so we don’t get there often. We do have an Aldi, tho’ and I have my favorites things there – they have pretty good cheeses, for one, tho’ not quite as great as TJ’s.

    I’ve told my grocery stories here before, I think – about Joel as a toddler in the grocery cart, sampling the produce, and declaring “MOM! These strawberries are not furry!”

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    1. I volunteered in coops for years. First in an early age buying club in Northfield, then the East Calhoun co-op on Bryant and then the . Linden Hills co-op. Single parenthood however put an end into that as it was cost me more to hire a babysitter than I got back in volunteer benefits Linden Hills co-op. Unfortunately, being a single parent put into that. Paying for a babysitter cost more than I was getting back in volunteer benefits.

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  16. I’ve probably told this story before, but no matter. I was in an Asian grocery a number of years ago, waiting in line behind a very young woman holding a carton of eggs. When it was her turn she asked the cashier what kind of eggs they were. He gave her a puzzled look and said “Chicken.” She set the carton down and said, “Oh, I don’t think I want them, then. I thought they were just regular eggs.” And left.

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