Super duper grocery store

In our neighborhood there are eight different grocery stores within about a five block radius.  There is the cheap store, the expensive store, the chic store, the specialty fruit and vegetable store, the store with the best wine selection, the simple knock-off franchise store…

In general we shop at the cheap store (Presunic) for our everyday grocery/household items and the specialty fruit and vegetable store (Hortifruiti) for tomatoes with flavor and ripe plums, etc.

Last year the new SUPER-MEGA grocery store Guanabara moved into Niterói.  The television has been flooded with the wonders of this discount store.  It’s a little far from our apartment so we only just yesterday made our first trip to check it out.

I was a little afraid.  There is a beer bar out front, presumably to provide a place to drown your sorrows after spending your paycheck on items you never really knew you needed.

There are 76 checkout lanes (but the checkers still sit, give no eye contact, and never pack your groceries).

The place is huge.  Mind you, I have NEVER stepped inside a Walmart store, ever.  The last time I shopped at a super-duper store I was a college student wandering the aisles of Meijers Thrifty Acres in Lansing, Michigan tripping on some substance that will go unnamed.

Anyway – when all was said and done – the prices were nothing to write home about, the service was nonexistent and the price of the cab to get us back home wiped away any chance of a savings, even if the prices were a few centavos less.

I’ll stick to my neighborhood grocers who always ask me how Luiz is doing and who lessen the experience of poor service by at least chatting a bit (while I pack my groceries).