The Pallet Grocery Outlet is a real-deal bulk food / salvage / close date / dented can grocery in the middle of nowhere: almost as much fun to get there as it is to find.
Pallet Grocery Outlet
RR1, Box 669 Rockland Rd.
Mifflintown, PA 17059
Phone: 717-463-9200
Mon / Tues / Sat: 9 AM - 5 PM
Thurs / Fri: 9 AM - 8 PM
Wed / Sun : CLOSED
Accepts, cash, local checks, food stamps, debit AND credit cards!
They'll bag your groceries in free plastic bags.
You will never find this place if you go looking for it without a guide and I will put a banana box of dented cans on this bet. Lucky for us both, my pals Brian and Susan and their 4 way too cool kidlets invited me to go with on a forage to Salvage Grocery North Country on Friday.
How to Get There
From Mooville Center find Rt. 322 W or Rt. 11/15 N and get on Rt. 322 towards State College somehow. Take the Thompsontown exit off Rt. 322 onto Rt. 333 E. Follow that to Rt. 235. Make a L onto Rt. 235 towards McAlisterville. At the light for Rt. 35 S go L. There will be a Juniata Bank Building on the left corner as you face the intersection but I don't know for how long because Brian said they just built a new one with a horse and buggy drive-through further up and he was right. They'll be selling this off and you could have a nice McAlisterville property if you wanted one pretty soon. Now. Once you get yourself on Rt. 35 you have nothing to help you but paying attention. WATCH for a low to the ground sign that says "J & M Pallet" and hang a R at that sign. I don't know the name of the road. WATCH for another sign that says "J & M Pallet" and make another R. At the third "J & M Pallet" sign, make a L and you will find the store on the L.
It is an immaculately clean metal pole building with lots of eaves and additions and the pallet mill is directly behind it. There is a hitching post for the horse and buggy if you brought one but the parking lot is large enough to accommodate whatever you drove there with.
What's Inside:
Regular cheap cleaning supplies, soap and vitamins and toothpaste, cereal, cake mixes, canned everything, tea and coffee, bulk flour and noodles and spices.
The vitamins were 150 count Centrum Silver for $1.99. Yes, the seal was broken and they had a February 10 code date on them but they're for the dog and I'm sure they'll be just fine.
Way cheap salad dressings that were 50 cents each or 5 for $1. They were very heavy on the Caesar's yesterday. Paul Newman, Brianna's, very good salad dressings. LOTS of mustard. LOTS of Grey Poupon at 99 cents an 8 oz. squeeze bottle.
Boxes of 16 oz. Bellino Arborio Risotto for 99 cents I had to have. Nonni's Biscotti, the 7 ounce boxes of Turtle Pecan were 79 cents each. A nice deli case and some dairy products. Frozen food. All 30 - 40% off what you would pay at a standard grocery store and clean as a whistle inside, too.
Yesterday they had 4 oz. bags of really good Springer Mountain Farms dog treats for Shadow the Wonder Dog at 79 cents a bag. Made with free-farmed chicken raised with NO antibiotics, NO corn, NO wheat, NO soy, NO preservatives and pomegranate. In a DOG TREAT! I KNOW! For 79 cents a bag. Shadow almost didn't mind being left behind for this trip when he got a whiff of these. But none of this is the big deal as big as it is.
THIS Is The Big Deal:
These wonderful people will sell you banana boxes for $5 a clip.
No, not an empty banana box although you and I both know the last time you moved you would have given more than that for a good banana box. These babies... when they have them... and they don't always... are a Big Fat Surprise Pak and you can't have this much legal fun in Mooville for five bucks, I'm telling you.
Yesterday, Brian asked one of the ladies stocking the shelves if Jesse was in. I thought this might be Mennonite code for who knows what but it turns out that Jesse and Carol Meyer run this place and Brian knows them. Jesse wasn't actually available (I think he is the J of J&M Pallet and was busy making pallets, I'm guessing) but it was enough of a tip that they were willing to admit to him that they only had 3 boxes of unsorted stuff just then.
Brian and Susan relieved them of 2 and I took the last one.
When we got it back to their house we opened them up and traded around for what we all wanted and this is what comes inside a $5 banana box at the Pallet Grocery Outlet:
What I Came Away With...
(9) cans solid white albacore tuna in water; Bumble Bee, 3 Diamonds, StarKist and Chicken of the Sea
(2) cans chunk light tuna in water
(2) 35 oz. cans of Cento peeled tomatoes
(2) 28 oz. cans of Luigi Vitelli tomato puree
(2) 15 oz. cans of Hunt's tomato sauce
(1) 8 oz. can of Hunt's tomato sauce
(2) 26 oz. cans of Hunt's spaghetti sauce - Four cheese and Garlic and Herb
(3) 15 oz. cans of Joan of Arc kidney beans
(1) 15 oz. can of Furman's crushed tomatoes
(1) 15 oz. can of Bush's black beans
(1) can Bush's Chili Magic chili starter
(1) can Hunt's Manwich Original Sloppy Joe sauce
(2) cans La Choy Chop Suey vegetables
(2) 15 oz. cans of Silver Floss sauerkraut
(1) can Del Monte sliced white potatoes
(1) can IGA green beans
(1) 8 oz. can Giorgio mushroom pieces
(2) 14 oz. cans of One Pie squash I'm not sure what you do with
(1) 32 oz. can of Campbell's tomato juice
(1) 10 oz. jar of Smucker's Simply Fruit Blueberry Spreadable Fruit
(1) unlabeled can of what turned out to be mixed salted cashews, pecans and Brazil nuts- no peanuts!
and...
(4) unlabeled true surprise cans. I haven't opened them up yet. If you have to know what's in them, send me an email and we'll look together...
44 cans of things @ $5 for the lot = 11 cents each.
Nope. Not with a stick...
Now:
Brian and Susan's bunch will not eat tuna fish and I don't eat meat at all. I gave up an unlabeled quart of apple juice and 2 jars of Smucker's Simply Fruit Blueberry preserves because there were three of those in my one box and how much blueberry preserves can one person and her spoiled rotten dog eat?
I don't eat tuna fish, either, but I'm thinking some very deserving people at the office are going to get cans of fancy white albacore for Christmas. I gave them a couple of cans of meat-based spaghetti sauce and they gave me one of their two cans of mushroom pieces and the Bush's chili starter. I think I gave them one of the 3 cans of sauerkraut and some carrots and peas and they forced me to take a couple of extra cans of black and kidney beans.
I don't eat tuna fish, either, but I'm thinking some very deserving people at the office are going to get cans of fancy white albacore for Christmas. I gave them a couple of cans of meat-based spaghetti sauce and they gave me one of their two cans of mushroom pieces and the Bush's chili starter. I think I gave them one of the 3 cans of sauerkraut and some carrots and peas and they forced me to take a couple of extra cans of black and kidney beans.
Not pictured here was a can of sardines from my box that had leaked a little oil and I wasn't having any of that but the kids agreed to open it up the rest of the way and feed it to the cats and Brian and Susan's porch smelled like the Edmund Fitzgerald as I was leaving out of there last night.
Everyone was a satisfied customer of the Pallet Grocery Outlet Friday night.
Next Time: Brian and Susan weren't done yet... Whispering Pines Fruit Farm, Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA
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