Grocery Stores in Calgary

Back home I shopped at Central Fresh Market, this small indie grocery store that was at least 100 years old. Shopping took all of 30 minutes & there was never much of a line in the store. I also went to Highland Farms to shop, because it carried more than the typical white guy that eats at Kelsey's kind of food.

Calgary seems to have 3 major stores:

Safeway: Generally very nice looking inside, but really really expensive. The food is decent, but it's hard to find anything out of the ordinary. Bread & veggies are 25% more expensive than at home.

Co-op: Much like Safeway, I'm told this started as a local chain to sell farmers goods. It's now a high end shop complete (sometimes) with hardwood floors. Like Safeway, the prices are very high but the quality is good (assuming you like the same ole, same ole).

Superstore: These places have a larger selection & carry more ethnic food, but the places are huge. The lines are long at the cash register & you need to put in a dollar to get a cart. I can see this being a pain in the ass because I'll forget about the dollar coin. They are also spread out over town, so going shopping for food will take forever (aka it means a 10 km or longer driver).

Figuring these 3 choices weren't so great, I set out to find a few other stores. Here's what I've come up with

Community Natural Foods? - I think that's the name of it, but it's a health food store. It's not that bad, and very large, and they have two locations, both easily accessible without a car. Organic produce costs alot, 10 bucks for a pound of red peppers. Ugh.

T&T Supermarket: A fascinating place that's geared toward the Chinese market. Or should I say Asian. There were quite a few people that where white that shopped there, and the prices are reasonable. There are apparently two of these places so I will have to check out the other. They had 3 King Crabs live in a tank, which is something I've never seen. A king crab is about 3 feet long (1 meter) and pretty bloody ugly. They also carry a whole pile of live fish and interesting food.

Lina's Italian Supermarket: Centre Street and 21st Ave NE, it's a pretty cool little store. You couldn't shop there entirely, but they had a great selection of cheese, meats, real pasta, etc. Walking into the store, I immediately felt I was back in Toronto shopping, which I admit to being a good feeling. I had some gelato, which was really good, and the price was pretty decent. I couldn't buy everything here, but I think I'll frequent this place.