There’s always time to shop for groceries

Star Beacon

May 10, 2009 01:16 am

— When you write a weekly column, there are times you stop and think — have I written this column before or only thought about it?
That can be a real problem. Nothing more embarrassing than unintentionally writing the same column as a few weeks or months ago.
Not so with this one. I know I’ve written this one before. But I’m writing it again.
It’s about supermarkets and our quest to eventually visit all 91 Giant Eagle supermarkets. There used to be at least 93, but the Pittsburgh-based chain closed one in Youngstown and one other. Now where was that? Oh yeah, two miles from my house.
The upshot is while there are other fine supermarkets out there, wife Louise is used to Giant Eagle and Giant Eagle is where we shop, no matter where we are in northeastern Ohio or northwestern Pennsylvania.
Last summer we traveled to Mentor so she could have a root canal. Why she wanted a root canal, I'm not sure. But she got one.
As we left the office, she had a request.
"Ga a a geagle," she told me in her root-canal voice.
Huh? I said, pretending not to understand. But indeed I did. She wanted to go to Giant Eagle.
Any time we travel more than 20 miles from home, we take an ice chest in case we run into a Giant Eagle .
A few months ago I got a coupon from Red Robin for free onion rings as a loyal customer. They have very good onion rings. But I'm not paying $7 for onion rings. Heck, Red Barn used to have them for 40 cents, although sometimes you could break your tooth on them.
So the day before the coupon expired, we trekked to Willoughby for $13 burgers, free onion rings and before we left that city, a visit to Giant Eagle. You could see the store from the restaurant. You could hear it beckon. "Louise, Louise, I'm here. I'm here."
A few weeks ago we attended a concert daughter Megan was performing in at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa. There was a time gap between when Megan had to be there to perform and we as the audience had to show up. Yep, we were a mere three blocks from a small yet serviceable Giant Eagle.
The next weekend we had to pick up a relative at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Unfortunately she missed a connecting flight from JFK and instead of arriving at 3:30 p.m., got in at 9.
So we killed time at Best Buy (I resisted attempts to buy anything), Half-Price Books, where you can get cheap HD-DVDs (and I couldn't resist), then dinner. But with less than an hour to landing, we raced to the nearest Giant Eagle. I got half a list, Louse the other and we raced around the store, eventually filling the car with water, pop, toilet paper and other items, before we met someone at the airport who was toting four pieces of luggage we had to squeeze in the car as well.
Feeding Louise's Giant Eagle addiction is our GPS, which can tell us no matter where in the U.S. or Canada we are where the closest Giant Eagle can be found. When you are around Hopkins, you learn there is one approximately one every three blocks. (But they can't keep one two miles from my house.)
Consumer Reports doesn't give Giant Eagle as good of a report as wife does . It ranks the chain a mere 46th out of 59 stores. It says Giant Eagle is average for service, perishables and cleanliness, but not good at price. Giant Eagle says its gasoline deal makes up for it.
Shoppers give better grades to stores like Aldi's and Save-A-Lot.
But the store the 32,599-shopper study found the best in the whole U.S.? Wegman's. That's a 72-store chain out of Rochester, N.Y., which is rated tops in cleanliness, service, price, checkout speed and perishables. It has also won awards in the past as a good place to work.
Best yet, there are two stores in the Erie area, within a half-hour drive for us. Wegman's also has an excellent vegetarian section.
If you happen to be my friend on Facebook, you can see the slideshow of grandson Henry sleeping through aisles and aisles at a Rochester area Wegman's several weeks ago. Henry ranked it a fine store for snoozing.
So no matter where our journeys take us, the Lebzelter quest is to buy whole-wheat hamburger buns from as far-flung areas as possible.
Oh that President Barack Obama comes through and improves our economy so another store is actually interested in locating in the long-vacant Giant Eagle building at Conneaut's Gateway Plaza, or what about where Tops was located in Ashtabula?
If you have some time on your hands, go over to www.wegmans.com and click on "contact us" and ask pretty please if it will locate a store or two in Ashtabula County. Or write to Wegmans Food Markets, 1500 Brooks Ave., P.O. Box 30844, Rochester, N.Y. 14603-0844.
When I mention to Louise how nice it would be if Wegmans would locate here, she always says, "You are dreaming." Or after a root canal, "Urr drrrr in."
But it doesn't hurt to try.
Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com.

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