Wenger's Grocery Outlet
8035 Old Turnpike Rd.
Mifflinburg, PA 17844
570-966-5084
Mon - Thu 8AM - 6PM
Fri 8AM - 8PM
Sat 8AM - 5PM
Closed Sundays
Provides bags; Accepts American money, MC and Visa; EBT.
The middle is that this is a LONG way into the deep, deep wilds of Outer Mooville. If you live in Mooville Proper, this is an hour and 15 minutes out of your way and an hour and 15 minutes back and you are going to be deeply disappointed. You will be far better served to hit the Sharp Shopper in Middletown and be back home in time to do something productive with your day. Like, watch the trash pile up across the street and wonder how people generate so much junk... or, I dunno, vacuum.
First of all, google map the place using the address up above which I took right off the register receipt. Whether you head north on 11/15 the whole way or take the side road 104 which is far more scenic and takes you not only past my dear Whispering Pines (which has a BIG big billboard now a mile before you get to that little hidden Martin Brothers Road which isn't as hidden now that someone built a house and paid for 4 poles to string their electric in from the main road so there's been some non-urban renewal since I was up here last Fall), but also past a cool little market called L L Marketplace that I didn't know was there... just know you have to go a good 3/4 of a mile east, past that brand new Sheetz on Chestnut St.
I'll be damned if I know what it is all the people in that part of the universe I just found do for a living or why they need 4 super gigando gas n' go places in the stretch of a mile.
I couldn't suss out what for thing anyone works at but the main drag has a sweet kind of turn of the century logging town feel that a lot of northern tier little burgs have in Pennsylvania. You'll hit Middleburg coming up just before you get to the turn onto Rt.45 and it's a dear little town, too...
Some grand old Victorians and a block of buildings one attached to the next... little businesses that seem to be open in support of the people who must have jobs somewhere... one place had a window slap full of bedazzled prom dresses... it might have been a consignment shop if anyone had an orange wedding they made their bridesmaids buy dresses for what with it being the new black and all. There's probably places to park back behind.
There must be disposable income up there but I cannot figure out from what -- There's a HUMONGOUS metal building with a red roof I swore had to be Wenger's but on the wrong side of the street that turned out to be a Buggy Museum. I am not kidding about this. And what for admission they charge to keep that metal building paid for, I can't imagine.Anyway. It was colder than they'd forecasted in Mooville... we WERE a ways north... and it was too windy to do any wandering around.... it was a mission to Wenger's and I am sorry for it now...
Just stay with Chestnut Street which I guess is Rt. 45 and head toward the Mifflinburg Lumber yard... Wenger's will make itself known presently and on the right and it is a massive thing.
I know these Mennonites have this thing about owning what they have and I'm sure someone told these guys to go big... my suspicion is something to do with the Martin brothers of my wonderful Whispering Pines in Mt. Pleasant Mills which you have to PASS to get here and do NOT do it, I'm telling you...
you just pull right into Martin Brother's Road off Rt. 104 and head up there to the Whispering Pines and have yourself a fine old time getting a bag of 5 or 6 blood oranges for 99 cents and some of their 2/$1.50 Thomas's mini bagels in cinnamon raisin and whole wheat and a 6 foot long casing of what turned out to be Velveeta for $1.15 a lb. or some of that pre-chopped salad lettuce that was 3 lbs. for $2.99 and should have been a dollar but after what I saw at Wenger's, I was just happy to get into that bakery room and look at the wonder that is that place's bakery room... the baby sourdough loaves were $1.25 today... all of it 10 -20% more than it was last year but even with the uncharacteristic rude, screaming children being wheeled around the store today... it was 1000% times better than the mess up in Mifflinburg...
Here's the deal.
These guys who built this Wenger's place must have had a fab deal on the land and they built this metal pole building... I'm going to take a wild stab at 20,000 sq. feet of it and it is AT LEAST 1/3 too much building for what they've got going... It's half again as large as the largest BB's grocery outlet of that chain's 4 (now 5 if you count the mini-BB's I have not yet gotten into up near Newport... patience... patience my little chickens) units and maybe they have plans.. yeah, BIG plans... THAT'S the ticket...
I found Wenger's on a tip from my salesman who was on his way up to RB Winter State Park last week who said it was huge but had not gone in to investigate. I think I'm going to fire him for that. The Yelp reviews are sparse...but telling if you read them closely.
Maybe it's inexperience with their pars as the place feels like it hasn't been open very long. The interwebz swear the guy whose name is on it, Mark Wenger, has been at it since 1997 but this place is just NOT that old. In any case, the shelves had gaping holes on them at 9 am on Saturday and it's not a lack of stock... they could easily have reloaded if they'd had stuff to put out... the state of freezer burn on some of the frozen goods showed some very odd ordering patterns if it was good when they got it and if they bought it like that, well, the pricing should have shown it. Which it did not.
Now they did have a 35 pound lump of something in that freezer case labeled "Miscellaneous: BEEF" and it surely was that... and there was some other hilarity to be had guessing what the pile of 29 cent/lb. Swai burgers were... closer reading of the label revealed it to be some kind of hypothalamus product of the... Swai... I wouldn't buy hypothalamus if I weren't a vegetarian but there was a lot of it available for those braver than I.
There were a lot of case goods... they break open a box of stuff and price it... and then knock 5% or so off of the remaining cases and leave them on the floor for you... But the prices are 10% higher than ANYTHING at any BB's in the area and if that's the market they're going after... *sighs*... oh, my...
They have a long, long way to go.
Very sparse stock, some REAL long out of date stuff (there was a half a freezer shelf of pink lemonade concentrate... 12 oz. cardboard cans, you know the kind I mean... they were 2/$1 OR.. a CASE of 24 of them for $1.99... the best by date? 2011.
Every single box of and bag of pasta was priced at 79 cents/ lb. There was a lot of it on the shelf... but that's the price of pasta at every bang and dent in Central Mooville... Some odd flavors of Starbucks coffee were $4.99 for a 9 oz. bag that's $3.99 at BB's and less if they get sick of looking at it... salad dressing was mostly $1-ish that goes for 2/ $1 and down to 25 cents a bottle at BB's...
The Man in My House picked up double packs of Tyson's sliced chicken breast from the freezer that was $1.29 for 2-1/2 lb. packages. It looked pretty freezer burned but it will turn into cat chicken if it's inedible so somebody in this house will be happy.
The produce section was so sad... lettuce was $1.49 a head... tomatoes were $1.29 a lb. but they looked beat by the time I was there... a buggy of nice bananas were 49 cents/lb. which is regular supermarket pricing (and there's a Weis market all but across the street so if they can't hear the footsteps, they need to pay attention)... a buggy next to it held gray colored bananas that were 19 cents/lb.
See, they should have passed on buying the gray bananas and got enough of the nice ones so they could price THEM at 19 cents a lb...
The dairy case was either really picked over or they are not stocking it... I saw three 12 packs of Yoplait yogurts for $2.99 (same as Sharp Shopper in Middletown last week) in this massive refrigerated case that they had to pay to keep running, people... the electricity isn't free for the holy) and 4 32 oz. lidless containers of OIKOS yogurt for 99 cents... there was more stuff in a side case but the prices were just not getting any better. BB's will have those big containers priced at 2/$1 all the time...
It's the overhead. They paid too much to put that building up and they aren't buying the volume they need to price the stuff to get it moving... The people working in the store are nice as pie but there are way too many of them for the number of customers in the parking lot. There is a HUGE staff parking lot around back and for people who don't drive, that's a lot of asphalt they put down for not much reason.
The dead boring Christian music they're piping in does grate and if they'd just find it in their creed to play some Jars of Clay or whatever the Billboard Hot Christian 100 has on it these days maybe you could stand to hang around long enough to find something to buy...
I felt bad for my heathen fortunetelling of the sad end for this place if they don't get it together when I read the verse taped above the soap dispenser in the women's room: "The only thing that God won't do is fail you."
I dunno.
God won't bail you out of a bad business plan, I'm pretty sure... But I'm a heathen. What do I know?
