Introduction to Outlet Grocery Shopping - Part 4: The Discount Grocery Also-rans

Here in Mooville you're talking Sav-A-Lot and Price-Rite when it comes to the discount grocery, the value, limited item supermarket, the stores that are NOT Aldi's.

PriceRite of Harrisburg
3812 Union Deposit Rd.
Harrisburg, PA 17109
Phone: (717)545-1689
http://www.priceritesupermarkets.com

Price-Rite is owned by the same bunch that owns Shop-Rite which is a regular plain vanilla supermarket chain and does not concern us here. Price-Rite, though, sports 35 locations throughout the Northeast and there's one right here in Mooville Proper...

You do have to bag your own groceries in your own bags or buy them from the store but the prices are pretty good.

I had a coupon mailed to my house from them for a 99 cent fresh pineapple the other week... and the best part of THIS store is the Spanish food you can find here. If you want to get fresh plantains to slice up and fry, make some arroz y morados and knock back some cafe Cubano in advance of the siesta you're gonna want after you get some honest to god flan out of the deli case... well, this is the store you've been looking for.

There isn't a decent Mexican restaurant in this town despite a pretty healthy Hispanic population and that's a fact but if you're wanting something other than those pasty things they call tortillas at The Giant... or autentico enough to want to pit-a-pat your own... the big fat bags o' masa harina are right here and so are about 25 kinds of the ones that are already made at the Price-Rite. Smaller than the big boxes by half, the produce here is first rate and I like this store a lot.

Save-A-Lot

2963 N 7Th St
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Phone:(717) 255-9880

Save-A-Lot
1045 Mt Rose Ave
York, PA 17403
Phone:(717) 771-5491

Save-A-Lot

222-26 S. Queen Street
Lancaster, PA 17603
Phone:(717) 392-9978
http://www.save-a-lot.com

Save-A-Lot, on the other hand is not so bright and shiny as Price-Rite.

The chain is a lot bigger than Price-Rite with more than 1100 stores nationwide and 3 right here in the Greater Mooville area and I don't know why the home office won't spring for an upgrade... even though the Harrisburg store shares it's strip mall at 7th and Division (an aptly named street if ever there was one) with a liquor store, a beer distributor, a rent-to-own furniture place and TWO dollar stores... do they HAVE to remind the poor people of Harrisburg that the big box groceries don't care enough about their money to build stores to take it from them?

Nice.

A little shopworn, a little dingy, a pretty sad produce section and small even by limited-item store standards, the prices are good on almost everything and it IS the only supermarket in the city.

Next time: The Conclusion to our series - In Part 5 we learn about The Hybrid Grocery Outlet. It's hard to contain your joy, I know.