WinCo

[Pete]

Received this today (to see bigger version, right click then open image in new tab) and thought it was interesting.

I live near Penn Square and I'm still on their mailing list for the Moore store, which may be priming the pump for their locations to come.

[FighttheGoodFight]

That ad makes me feel ok for shopping at Crest. I always hear from people that Crest is more expensive than Homeland but I have never spent less at Homeland.

I don't expect a Winco in Norman so I think Walmart and Crest will remain supreme. Just hoping for that CostCo for the bulk now.

[Pete]

I'm sure Winco carefully selected items that would favor them but still, this sort of effort shows their commitment to low prices in the market.

I bet their stores do as well in OKC as anywhere else in the country. Just such a great fit.

[Bullbear]

Brilliant marketing!. I mean all grocery stores Price shop competitors but to put it out in an ad is a good move and very aggressive competition.

[Pete]

BTW, that ad also included the actual receipts from all the stores, I just didn't include that part.

They actually went out and spent all those amounts at the various stores.

[Roger S]

They won me over just with their selection alone... Saw lots of things that are hard to find at other local grocers.

My only complaint would be the lack of a fresh meat counter.... I'm sure I'll be going there to get briskets but I've been a little underwhelmed with their other packaged cuts other than ground beef.... Will probably be sticking to Crest, or local butcher shops, for chops and steaks.

[Zuplar]

I like that ad.

We may drive over there this weekend and try it out. It's got me intrigued and I don't even do the grocery shopping.

[LocoAko]

Can't wait for the 39th and Portland location! Will be right around the corner.

[SouthSide]

I was at the Moore location Sunday and you had to wait in line to get in. The Fire Marshall had been out earlier in the week and they were over capacity.

[Brett]

Since there is no sampling in the bulk foods section of WinCo, I just wanted to let everyone know that the Picosito candy that caught my eye (and my appetite) is like a Chick-O-Stick nugget coated in a piquant, chili flavoring. I love Chick-O-Sticks and this is like a south-of-the-border Chick-O-Stick.

[Dustin]

They are really pumping out the commercials now. I've seen about 4 today all during the same program.

[bombermwc]

I'm sure Winco carefully selected items that would favor them but still, this sort of effort shows their commitment to low prices in the market.

I bet their stores do as well in OKC as anywhere else in the country. Just such a great fit.

I agree that they probably picked items that would end up showing that their prices were lower. I'll be interested to see what that same test looks like a year from now after the new car smell comes off.

[Zuplar]

Wife and I took a trip over to Moore last night to give WinCo a try, so I figured I'd give my 2 cents.

I'll preface by say it was busy for 7:30pm on a Thursday night, but not so busy that there was a line. Walking into the store I was not a big fan of how they funnel you all into one aisle that has all their best deals. This was really confusing and somewhat overwhelming because at first you are thinking everything is random. Once we realized these are the 'it' deals it made a little more sense, but everyone else you could tell was just as confused and it was really crowded in this area. This is something I'm sure will get better though, so not overly concerning.

Now I don't usually do the grocery shopping, so I'm not familiar with all the pricing. My wife does all of it usually, and she is not someone who uses coupons regularly. Her overall impression was that there were definitely some good deals (which I'm curious how many of those are because of the grand opening), but most name brand stuff was similarly priced to Walmart (where we tend to shop because of the pickup feature). Where WinCo seemed to shine was their house branded items. From what I could tell their canned and boxed items were half the price of their name brand counterpart. Needless to say we went with their branded stuff to give it a try. If it's as good as the name brand then I can tell that's where you save your money. She also said the meat and cheese we got was cheapest she'd seen. I believe the cheese was also WinCo branded.

There was a couple of things I didn't like though. For starters the aisle width is only 2 shopping carts wide, and not very forgiving. Compare this to Crest (104th one anyways) where they are nice and wide. The store overall felt very cramped. It seems to me that it's smaller than Crest building wise, but appear to have crammed the same amount of shelving and food in a smaller building. I'm sure this is by design, but makes the store seem very crowded very fast IMO. I'm sure this will get better over time once the new wears off and people aren't all coming at once. So I don't expect this always to be an issue. Lastly I'm sure it was mentioned but I had forgot, I dislike bagging my own groceries. After spending over an hour in the store, this is the last thing I wanted to do and with how much we bought, wasn't fun. Glad I went cause I had forgotten about this and would have felt super bad about my 8 month pregnant wife doing this all by herself.

So in summary for us I'd say overall we had a positive experience. There are definitely savings to be had. We will probably start shopping there on a monthly or 6 week basis to bulk up on the majority of our food. We live over by the airport, so it's a bit of a drive over to Moore so we won't really be able to use it to get the fresh produce every one or two weeks, but we'll continue to utilize either Walmart or Crest for that.

[TheTravellers]

We plan on going to the one on 39th as our regular store once it opens, it'll be closer and cheaper than Uptown (we're at 36th/May), but we're curious about the meat/seafood at Winco. We get all kinds of fresh things from Uptown's meat/fish counter and were wondering how Winco compares to Uptown in that respect? We use Sprouts for deli meat and some produce, so it seems like the meat/fish counter might be the only thing that we'd have to go elsewhere for, but hopefully not.

[Bobby821]

Went to Winco today and browsed the meat section and they only had Select briskets no choice or angus ones at this time.

[Dustin]

Oh lordy...

I decided to stop by today to peruse the aisles. I came at the wrong time! It was elbow to elbow on every aisle! Extremely unejoyable. I bought cabbage, sausage, and beer and then I got the hell out of there! I'll be back at a much later date when the hype has died down.

Also, bread is 88 cents a loaf! Whhhaaattt!

[Firefly831]

Nothing is worth the seventh level of hell that store currently is. I feel like i just went to war for some groceries. Are somethings really cheap? sure. Are some things more expensive then Crest? Also yes. But when you take into account you cant stop to hardly even look at anything because its so god damn crowded AND you have to bag your own stuff, Im not sure if they were giving away gold bars Id be willing to go again. Maybe when the new wears off in 6 months or if it was like 3am.

[Pete]

^

Will help a ton when the other locations open and the newness wears off.

The ones in California were slammed at the usual busy times but otherwise not a big problem.

I bet that Moore is going to set some Winco records at the rate they've been going.

[Firefly831]

It doesnt help that it is also one of the oddest layouts of a grocery store that I have ever seen.

[LocoAko]

I really hope the Portland/39th location doesn't feature an extended period of mob crowds, though at this rate that seems unlikely.

[Roger S]

Went to Winco today and browsed the meat section and they only had Select briskets no choice or angus ones at this time.

Better get back over there quick.... I found these choice briskets labeled at select prices....



They must have realized they had selects on the floor and pulled them and put these choice out just as you left!

[shawnw]

I think we need a WinCo MeatCam

[Bobby821]

Better get back over there quick.... I found these choice briskets labeled at select prices....



They must have realized they had selects on the floor and pulled them and put these choice out just as you left!

They must have because dam, all I saw was Select ones and they were definitely higher than those Choice ones in your pictures. I was going to grab another one but they didn't have the good ones out when I was their last time. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this immiediately

[OKCRT]

What's the real difference between choice and select if they are prepared properly?

[d-usa]

Seems like using higher quality meat for BBQ defeats the purpose of why BBQ developed in the first place