While Good Foods Coop offers some great stuff, it doesn't carry everything you need in life. Neither does Fresh Market, but in the buffet-style shopping that we prefer, Fresh Market has a niche.
Good Foods really doesn't specialize in meat. I don't know whether most of their members are vegetarians, or their food standards aren't easily met, or what. But they only carry a small selection of local/organic/grass-fed etc.
Fresh Market, by contrast, provides an enormous meat counter stuffed with yummy things. Some of the products are organic, etc., but most are not.
The best options are poultry and pork, because although Fresh Market's beef is gorgeous, it also costs the moon. They almost never run serious specials on things like steak, so if you want affordable beef you'll have to buy a chuck roast or something. When it comes to pork, though, you can get a really good roast, chop, or loin for a reasonable price. Chicken is nearly as good, though the breasts often look a little tired. The roasting chickens are excellent, and usually relatively small (which we like because it's just us eating and even a 2.5 pound chicken is a lot for 2).
The fish counter looks great, but I haven't purchased anything except some shrimp there. The shrimp were bad. I prefer wild-caught American shrimp (for both health and political reasons), and I failed to clean them before boiling. Oops. They were nasty. But this is really my fault, so you can't blame the vendor. If you're looking for fish in Lexington, I think this is the best choice, by far.
Fresh Market sells other things, but they tend to be more eye-candy than real groceries. This is true for two reasons:
1. FM has some inventory problems. One week, there will be buffalo burgers in the freezer. Next week, only buffalo steaks. Then there'll be a sign at the butcher counter saying "ask for buffalo burgers, we'll get them!" and when you do, the butchers claim they're out in the freezer section. "Uh, no, they're not. And what about this sign?" So they go look. Some weeks, they've got them (at the butcher counter), some weeks they don't. The sign remains. Ditto apple juice in certain containers. Ditto certain frozen pizza items. Ditto snow peas (or, really, any green veggie in a smallish package). etc. So one reason to shop elsewhere for other groceries is that you can't count on FM to have them every time.
2. FM is expensive. Seriously expensive. Sometimes, veggies will cost twice the price elsewhere, but I have not seen a massive improvement in quality. On something like a peach, this is a problem. I'd rather wait and buy my peaches at the Lexington Farmer's Market than spend too much to buy poor peaches at FM. And an ok apple is an ok apple whether at FM or at Meijer. Dry goods can be much, much more expensive. Carolina rice? Sounds great! But not at $8 a pound.
So you probably wouldn't want to shop exclusively at Fresh Market. Especially if you like to buy shampoo once in a while. But for meat, seafood, and a few other things (the breads are good, and they carry organic milk and good yoghurt), you'll find the quality high and the selection pretty good.
Best of all, Fresh Market is located just off New Circle Road, on Tates Creek Drive. From town, just drive south on Tates Creek, and it will be on your right before New Circle (4). From New Circle, exit at Tates Creek and turn to head into town (right, from the inner loop, left from the outer loop). It'll be on the left at the second light.
Wild Oats is a nice store, and hopefully nicer soon thanks to being purchased by Whole Foods. But you have to risk your life (or sanity) to get there because the exit/merge off of New Circle is terrifying. Fresh Market offers much the same experience and product, with a lot less white-knuckled-horror.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Good Foods Co-op
One of the great pleasures of Lexington is that despite being a small city, it offers a variety of options for food shopping.
Frankly, we find the local Kroger's groceries disappointing, and while Meier is a good place for dry goods and paper products, the meat and produce won't impress anyone.
All that's fine, though. Because there are other options, quite a few other options, considering Lexington's population. One of the friendliest is the Good Foods Co-op on Southland Drive.
Good Foods feels like an old-fashioned health-food store. You can listen to conversations about the quality of local, organic eggs ("you gotta get more, man, they're awesome!") and browse the seitan aisle. There's something appealingly personal about the whole place.
At the same time, it's merchandised with much of the same sophistication as a Whole Foods, so there are sections for books, ceramics, and alternative medicines as well as a coffeeshop/cafe with a hot lunch bar. There's nothing scruffy or disorganized about Good Foods.
In fact, they've helped us to solve an irritating problem. Our dogs eat an organic dog food produced in southern California: Solid Gold Hund-n-Flocken. For the last year and a half, we've tried to find a steady supply. Wild Oats sometimes had it, sometimes not. The cute local place sometimes had it, sometimes not (they fell off the supply list when they told me to come back on New Year's Eve to get more. I said, "You'll be open that day?" "You bet!" Actually, no. They weren't. But I'm not bitter.). We fluctuated between euphoria and frustration, depending on the bag-stack in the garage.
But Good Foods apparently believes in effective inventory control. How novel! When they carry a product, it's actually on the shelf. Every time. Imagine that. So now we visit the store every other week, and I supplement the lamb-n-rice with Greek yoghurt for me (Fage Total, YUM!) and little tubs of nitrate free dried mango.
The only fly in this ointment is that the meat and cheese sections are thin. You can buy meat there, but true to their values it's local meat. We don't care for the flavor of grass-fed beef, and the prices are high while selection is minimal. So if you're looking for lots of choices in high quality meats, this probably isn't the place. Milk and yoghurt, though, Good Foods carries in abundance. This includes things like buffalo yoghurt, which I tasted. It was gross. But if you like that sort of thing, or if you need goat's milk, Good Foods can hook you up.
For those new to Lexington: If you take New Circle Road to Nicholasville Road, and head into town (right), you'll turn left onto Southland Drive. The Co-op will be on the right, a little ways down, in a shopping center. From town, just head south on Nicholasville Road, the turn right onto Southland, and look for the Co-op on the right.
Frankly, we find the local Kroger's groceries disappointing, and while Meier is a good place for dry goods and paper products, the meat and produce won't impress anyone.
All that's fine, though. Because there are other options, quite a few other options, considering Lexington's population. One of the friendliest is the Good Foods Co-op on Southland Drive.
Good Foods feels like an old-fashioned health-food store. You can listen to conversations about the quality of local, organic eggs ("you gotta get more, man, they're awesome!") and browse the seitan aisle. There's something appealingly personal about the whole place.
At the same time, it's merchandised with much of the same sophistication as a Whole Foods, so there are sections for books, ceramics, and alternative medicines as well as a coffeeshop/cafe with a hot lunch bar. There's nothing scruffy or disorganized about Good Foods.
In fact, they've helped us to solve an irritating problem. Our dogs eat an organic dog food produced in southern California: Solid Gold Hund-n-Flocken. For the last year and a half, we've tried to find a steady supply. Wild Oats sometimes had it, sometimes not. The cute local place sometimes had it, sometimes not (they fell off the supply list when they told me to come back on New Year's Eve to get more. I said, "You'll be open that day?" "You bet!" Actually, no. They weren't. But I'm not bitter.). We fluctuated between euphoria and frustration, depending on the bag-stack in the garage.
But Good Foods apparently believes in effective inventory control. How novel! When they carry a product, it's actually on the shelf. Every time. Imagine that. So now we visit the store every other week, and I supplement the lamb-n-rice with Greek yoghurt for me (Fage Total, YUM!) and little tubs of nitrate free dried mango.
The only fly in this ointment is that the meat and cheese sections are thin. You can buy meat there, but true to their values it's local meat. We don't care for the flavor of grass-fed beef, and the prices are high while selection is minimal. So if you're looking for lots of choices in high quality meats, this probably isn't the place. Milk and yoghurt, though, Good Foods carries in abundance. This includes things like buffalo yoghurt, which I tasted. It was gross. But if you like that sort of thing, or if you need goat's milk, Good Foods can hook you up.
For those new to Lexington: If you take New Circle Road to Nicholasville Road, and head into town (right), you'll turn left onto Southland Drive. The Co-op will be on the right, a little ways down, in a shopping center. From town, just head south on Nicholasville Road, the turn right onto Southland, and look for the Co-op on the right.
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