Valu-Mart

The prices are outrageous. Expect to pay upwards of six dollars for butter, for example. The cashiers are at a loss when it comes to putting my purchases in bags. Eggs do not go in first and bananas can not go in next to my can of apple juice. I have complained to the manager about this in person, phoned to complain the next time it happened, and then finally complained to their head office. Nothing has changed. Twice I have had cashiers try to way over charge me because they were not using the scales properly. I explained to one girl what she was doing wrong and she told me I was wrong. I had to get the manager to show her I was right. Staff are not courteous or very helpful. I avoid this store even though I live a five minute walk from it. Many things don’t have prices on them and if you ask staff, they won’t bother to check.

This is a clean, clean and semi-​attractive valu-​mart not perfect service really. But almost always service with a Smile! Prices at time of writing a still quite reasonable!

This has to be the worst excuse for a grocery store I have ever seen! The prices are ridiculous, can’t believe anyone would pay that much, especially the produce. When they have an item on sale in the flyer they don’t carry it. I tried to get local strawberries the last 2 days, they will only sell you California as the local are on sale. When they have grapes on sale they carry about 2 – 3 small bunches. The last couple of times I did buy berries they ended up in the garbage after 1 day, went mushy and had mold. Most people just buy a few items in this store, main reason anyone would shop here is because they have parking. I really hope they close down and we get someone who actually knows how to run a store. (Longo’s would be great). I have been to other Valu Mart stores that were not this bad! The Loblaws chain should be ashamed.

Close to where I work.
Expensive salads. Bombay chicken salad being the only one I liked out of the choices they have and I’ve tried. Plenty of take outs and fast food around the place which you would enjoy more.
Well it’s a place to grab a quick lunch and nothing more to be expected.
Service is friendly and the people are good.

I’m not sure what people expect or even understand about eh Valu-​Mart chain of supermarkets. This place isn’t supposed to carry everything and anything. It won’t have all the ‘fancy’ name brands you might find in bigger and better know supermarket chains. But it’ll have everything and anything for those that know what they need. Also, if you know the neighbourhood just a tiny bit, you’ll be able to buy whatever you’re looking for without having to go too far.
The staff is friendly and helpful, prices are good, hours are great and it’s perfectly located for anyone that lives east of Queen and Glen Manor (or those not close enough to the other supermarket option at Queen & Lee).

I popped in here on my way home from work last night to pick up some milk and ended up poking around and picking up some other food. While this isn’t the kind of place that I would do most of my grocery shopping, it is convenient for where I’m living right now for quick last minute pick ups.
Given, this is a very small store. It didn’t take long to navigate but they do seem to have the basics covered and then some. However, I don’t think I could do a proper weekly shop at this location. The small size of the store made me want to get the hell out as fast as possible and I didn’t end up taking much time to look for more dinner options before making a dash for the cash. Trying to go through the freezer section was difficult as the aisle had a few people in it.
For convenience, this is a great stop off and they have the bases covered. But overall, I’d rather do my grocery shopping elsewhere if I can help it.

I’ll give this store some slack because of its small size but overall it is still pretty lousy, even if it’s one of the better options nearby.
You’d think such a small space would be easier to keep clean, but it is almost always dirty compared to their usually immaculate sister store, Loblaws. They also seem to have continued issues with one of their freezers. Every once in a while I go shopping to find one freezer case at room temperature. Checking the thermometer one time revealed the case –warmer– than the air outside (and this was spring and about 15° outside). The two times I’ve told staff about it, they merely shrugged their shoulders and went back to work. It’s also been apparent that they’ve also made no attempt to replace the dethawed product the the times I’ve noticed it. Returning the next day or week and you can see the bubbled and deformed cardstock packaging where the droplets of condensing water soaked in. (So at least it’s easy to tell which product is newly stocked and hasn’t been thawed/refrozen…unless its in a plastic bag, like French Fries, then it’s impossible to tell)
It also seems that it might happen often enough to make me suspect that some of the product may have been through more than one thaw/​freeze cycle, which –can’t– be good for the quality of the food.
One other issue I find that tends to come up is not really the lack of selection, but the inconsistency of it. Other than the staples you never really know whether they’ll have the product you’re looking for even if they sold it just a few weeks earlier. One week they might have their regular President’s Choice potato chips, the next week its their blue menu kettle cooked chips. They also may or may not have baby spinach which could come in up to 3 brands/​sizes or as little as zero.
It really makes it difficult to plan your shopping list ahead of time.
But the staff are usually friendly, the checkout lineups short and has a decent amount of parking, which is a rarity in the area. The hours, like Kat F. had said, are also good and as simple as this is, I appreciate stores that have consistent hours throughout the week so you don’t have to try and remember 7 sets of hours instead of just one. Inevitably you always forget that the store closes early the one day you chose to go shopping in the evening.
But if anyone from the store reads this:
Check your freezer temperature at least every few hours. You have built in thermometers. Use them. If you notice a problem you should have several hours to either get it fixed or move the product to another freezer case or back into the stockroom freezer. All that product retains a lot of cold so for it to end up at room temperature means the freezer was off for as much as an entire day or more. Not noticing a problem for that long is just ridiculous.
And while some product might be okay to partially thaw to room temperature (for very short periods of time!) and refreeze and only suffer minor reductions in quality, with other products it becomes a –serious– health risk. Maybe sealed frozen dinners are safer when thawed/​refrozen than frozen home cooked meals, but they are –not– immune to the same issues that could cause food poisoning.
If Toronto health found out you were still selling thawed food they would probably close your store until you removed the offending product.

Three stars for convenience. If you’re part of the strange subset of people who like to shop after hours (read: after midnight) you’ll know how difficult finding a grocery store that’s open past 5 or 6pm on a Sunday is. My local No Frills closes at 6pm and frankly, I only got the urge to shop at 8:30pm last night.
My M.O. was to take the 501 streetcar back and forth on Queen Street till I found some form of grocery store that appeared open, hop off and buy some essentials (red lentils, fresh mint and cottage cheese). Gotta put that $ 109 metropass to use, you know?
Luckily this Valu-​Mart is open 8am-​9pm every day, even Sundays. It was sparsely staffed, but I knew what I wanted and easily found everything I needed in this «No Frills”-inspired store. It’s not very big but they have just about everything and the prices are fairly standard. I will say that their ice cream selection was rather wimpy — no Breyer’s, Chapman’s or B&Js. But they did have So Good Butterscotch and PC Mango Sorbet (one of my faves).