Publix

As I was reading the reviews I noticed a lot of fellow Floridians are just as pleased as I am to have a Publix in the Raleigh area. I live in North Raleigh, so it’s a bit of a drive for me but it’s worth every minute!
Made the drive out today because my hubby wanted some hot & spicy chicken wings. I swear they are the best chicken wings ever. Breaded or naked. You can’t go wrong. Pub subs are the bomb and so is everything in their bakery. This location has an olive bar, specialty cheese section, a great produce section and meat department. Everything is so nice and clean!
Customer service is on point at Publix. I just wish I lived closer because the 40 minute drive just isn’t doable all of the time. –_–

I grew up in Florida so I’m glad to see Publix open in the RDU area.
As others have mentioned, the subs are simply the best. I’m an oddball who isn’t all that excited by boars head but I think the publix meat and cheeses are delish. And you save a few bucks going that direction.
They will make you a sub out of anything in their deli. You are not limited by the menu.
The sub bread is simply the best on the planet.
This location (Cary) has a small dining room next to the deli if you want to escape the office. ;-)
Oh yea and it’s a wonderful grocery store too. ;-)

It’s hard to go anywhere else after going to Publix! The store is beautiful. The subs are to die for and so are the flatbreads. The cakes can’t be beaten. They also have a salad bar, olive bar, and soup bar. Every single employee speaks when they see you. Great customer service is something new they brought to the grocer sector and they went all the way! Lifelong customer — done.

I love Publix. We moved here from FL, so we were very happy to see that this location had just opened. I went today to their 1 yeAr anniversary celebration and it was a madhouse!

For a standard chain grocery store, this one is tops. Great produce and selection and very helpful staff. Peanut butter and bread being on the opposite side of the store is perplexing but someone help me find it. Help out with groceries is nice to be offered especially for people with young kids. Prices are a little higher than say, Food Lion but not horrible and selection makes it worth it.

As a born and raised Floridian who now lives in NC, I miss Publix so much and was ridiculously excited when I heard one was opening. It takes me 30 – 40 minutes to drive to this location, but every once in a while it’s a special treat. The Publix in-​house bakery can’t be beat (Italian five grain bread for the win!). Great BOGO deals every week. Friendly and helpful employees. Really, what more could you want? Yes, the prices are a bit higher than a Food Lion, but you get what you pay for. Now if only they’d open a location in my neck of the woods (north raleigh).

Love this place. Lots of items you can’t find elsewhere. Their homemade red skin potato salad is the bomb.

Well worth a visit and eval. Good customer service and pricing comparable to Harris Teeter. Clean, bright, and neat aisles. The layout is weird to me, versus typical grocery stores. Deli and Bakery goods looked very good.

I’m a big fan of Publix… read my previous review and you will see that. I have been a fan of Publix ever since growing up with it in my hometown in Florida. However, with this new Publix in Cary, North Carolina, I do have one major complaint, and for that reason I am taking away one star in my review for how I feel about this Publix grocery store here in North Carolina. The store is great, and we are happy to have it here finally, BUT, their insistence of helping you take your cart out to your car is verging on the brink of being not only annoying, but also it borders on harassing behavior. This is especially when you have told them that you prefer to take the cart out to your car yourself, and yet they act as if you are being difficult, and they keep trying to hold on to your cart and continue to insist that they «help» you with it.
Now, for some people, I am sure that having the employee help you to your car with your groceries is a nice gesture on their part. I have no doubt that there are those that would need the help out if they had their hands full with other things or had a baby stroller or carrier that they needed to hold as well or if they had a broken leg or were in a wheelchair or whatever. If you are able to take the cart out yourself though, and you have let them know that you prefer it that way, then they should simply let go of your cart and say, «Ok, have a nice day… we look forward to having you shop with us again.» That should be the end of it at that point. However, every time we have tried to let the Publix employee know that we prefer to take our cart out to the car ourself, we have been met with what amounts to a verbal insistence on their part, and our having to either relent or sound pushy if we insist on taking it ourselves. With that happening every single time at the end of our shopping experiences at the new Publix, it is getting to the point where we dread checking out. No one should have to go through that worry over what should be a simple transaction of shopping for groceries. Yes, they do give you a coupon for an item or discount from their store IF you let them take the cart out, but seriously, we know that, and we still prefer having the option of taking the cart out ourselves. Take the hint Publix management. Customers should receive coupons, discounts and/​or a percentage off on their bill, simply for shopping at your store often (as it is a choice that we can always go to another grocery store like Harris Teeter if we feel like it), not for the fact that you have taken their groceries out to their car for them. In fact, going to Harris Teeter (or Food Lion or Lowes), feels more and more appealing when we consider the fact that they do not try to force taking our cart out at the end of our shopping experience.
The management at this Publix (and any new Publix here in North Carolina), really needs to reconsider their tactics on how to approach customer service. There is a point where they need to realize that if in fact they are trying to «help» customers, they should let the customers choose what they prefer to do as far as taking their groceries out to their vehicle. It should not become a stressful situation, where the customer is left feeling as if they are pressured into letting the employee help them to their car. Seriously, some days you just want to get your groceries and leave, without the need for idle chit-​chat with whichever employee has helped bag your groceries. The fact that they helped bag the groceries is good enough. Take the hint Publix. We are happy to have you here in North Carolina. There is no need to insist that we let you help us out to our car with our bags.

First, this place is very bright, very clean and extremely pleasant to shop at. Why not. 5* rating. Still just a grocery store…
The bakery was very… Warm fresh jewish rye!!! Had to buy one
The deli and prepared meal area, wasn’t all that impressive.
Prices are definitely cheaper than teeter, hopefully this will wake teeter up.

Very very very similar to an upscale Harris Teeter. Some items were cheaper and some more expensive. I’m not sure I understand what all the fuss is about, maybe regional brand loyalty? That being said, the details I noted were that the staff were extremely friendly and they have a large selection of cheap and fresh herbs.

Was excited to check out Publix today! It’s brand new and super clean. The customer service was very good. The large of any true organic items minus strawberries/​apples was enough to make it our last trip.
Harris Teeter is pricier but has so much more organic foods. Eating apples, strawberries, blueberries etc that are not organic is like eating Raid.

Hol… hol…holddddd up! A PUBLIX!!! YES, YES, YES! I’m a native Floridian and if you don’t understand how big a deal Publix is then…“It’s a Florida thang and you just don’t understand!”
One of the big things with Publix is customer service. When I first walked in I ended up having a conversation with the sample lady for 30 min! (Can’t help it, I like to talk)
The bakery… name a grocery store with a better one? I would say Publix and Whole Foods are my fav. Get the carrot cake or cookies! They’re my favs.
Subs…oh glorious subs! 6 – 12 inches of pure… wait, what’s going on here. Well (clears throat)…let’s just say they are delicious.
Meat department. A+, Fish Dept. A
Do you like ice cream? Do you like chocolate? You don’t even know how obsessed I am about it! With that being said, Publix has THE BEST commercial ice cream, «Chocolate Trinity»…Sounds good? That’s because it is!
My only issue with Publix is they don’t have enough organic options for certain things I like. Other then that, I’m there!
Lastly, don’t see something you want? Let them know and they will order it for you… and I mean ANYTHING… order it just for YOU. Who else does that?
Welcome to Publix folks where «shopping is a pleasure» :)

Such a disappointment!
I grew up and lived most of my life in Miami, FL where Publix has the best grocery stores in town. Moved to Raleigh six months ago and was happy to see this store in Cary was opening. I waited until today to make the long drive there to get groceries, and was so dissapointed that they built this store to their «new» layout, which is like a rat maze for shoppers. Here are the pros and cons.
Pro:
— excellent bakery, but unfortunately none of the items I counted on. No seeded rye bread, no unseeded rye bread, no onion rolls, no onion pockets. Prices on their other baked goods are better than most local bakeries.
— friendly employees are everywhere
— quick checkout and help to the car. Unfortunately they managed to dump over my items from the bakery so that they were all crushed by the time I repacked them at the car. I wish they just would have let me handle my own bags!
Cons:
— the store layout is the same insane rat maze they are using for new stores everywhere. I am a vegetarian, so I look for good produce, in a logical layout, and tou won’t find it here. Want local organic produce? Good luck. You can have some organic, or very little local, but try and find both! Want to walk from the produce section to dairy? First you have to find the path that takes you by wine, the stinky seafood section, then past the dead bloody meats so brilliantly displayed. Nice. Then a trek past central frozen foods, dry goods and finally to the far end of the store. Their consultants probably told them this was great for sales, but for me I won’t be going back.
— loved all the international foods at Publix stores in South Florida. Here it is just a real dissapointment with much less than my local Food Lion or Harris Teeter.
So not worth the drive, and wish them well, but I won’t be shopping at Publix anymore! After spending $ 50+ at Publix, I stopped at my local Harris Teeter on the way home to buy all the groceries I couldn’t find. Meh!

Yes, it’s a nice store and it’s brand new so very sparkly and shiny. There are many brands I’ve not seen in other local chains, which is always nice to see. Most of the employees are super nice, but their offer to help carry out even one small bag of groceries for an obvious able bodied person is a bit over the top.
I think their prices are in line with Harris Teeter, so no big savings in that regard. They do have two for one offers weekly and their house brands are a good price throughout the store.
There’s a good variety of ready made salads and such. The deli and bakery looks pretty average. Nothing like what a Wegmans offers (if only!).Produce always looks fresh and quite a big variety.
Seems like evenings after eight are a better time to avoid the crowds, which otherwise can get very hectic.

Publix is Florida’s finest export aside from bandwagon sports fans, a crooked legal system, Disney World, and old people. The supermarket boosts over 1,000 locations, over 700 of which are based in Florida and even with that type of geographic concentration the company still racks up over $ 27 billion in annual sales.
Publix sends out all the right messages to me, it boasts the slogan, «Where Shopping is a pleasure,» and the company as a whole is employee owned. I’ve heard that everyone who works at a Publix gets some ownership stake in the company and how cool is that compared to working at other grocery chains like an IGA or Harris Teeter? The CEO of Kroger started as a stock boy, but there are only so many kings of the mountain and it’s good to see the little guys starting out get a piece of the pie beyond their minimum wage salary.
Onto this location, the parking lot is huge which is an issue with the Harris Teeter on Oberlin Road. Its bakery department is also best-​in-​class with breads and cakes that you swear were from the fanciest artisan pastry shop in Manhattan just go ahead and lie about where you got them. I gained a few pounds from laying the smack down on the challah bread within 2 days of picking it up. Assorted rolls and carbohydrates blow the competition out of the water. Deli was more in-​line with competitors.
A couple of things keep Publix away from achieving a higher score. The aisles aren’t as wide as I am accustomed to, I felt slightly claustrophobic. The layout as well didn’t flow that well for me. The economist in me says that they are missing potential sales by placing the pharmacy and bathroom products at the far end of the store away from the rest of the products, I felt no need to deeply browse that section like I would at Teeter where it is more built into the center of the build and I’d have to walk through those aisles to get to frozen for instance.
So I don’t like the layout and the skinnier aisles, I think the last thing that rubs me the wrong way is that Publix doesn’t have a customer loyalty card and I think that forces them into the lazy practice of matching any competitor price rather than offer specific deals that would appeal to shoppers based on their shopping habits. I think this lack of IT investment on the back-​end will ultimately hurt the company and the service oriented economy we have grown into. We are in the age of big data where companies look at customer habits and please the base. For example, you know when Netflix put down the capital to finance something like Orange is the New Black, Netflix charted out that based on people’s viewing habits over their platform, X amount of viewers would watch the show and it would ultimately be worth the investment. I think Publix isn’t offering deals people want and thinking long-​term, they are simply playing catch-​up by matching others.

This brand new Publix in Cary nothing short of awesome. Florida native here and let me tell you something — nothing beats a Publix sub. So happy that the only Publix here in the Triangle is less than 5 minutes away from me.
The store itself is brand new, clean, and well organized. Everyone I encountered in the store were super friendly and helpful. There’s an amazing deli, prepared foods, and bakery section here, which include tons of entrees and sides you can purchase by weight as well as all the delicious bakery treats that Publix is known for. They even had guava and cheese pastries, which I haven’t seen in NC outside of BJ’s! In terms of prices, they are very competitive. Cheaper than Harris Teeter, but for the same quality of goods. They have amazing BOGO sales and that’s what you’re really after when shopping here. Service is also impeccable, the bagger literally insisted on walking me out to my car (which I’m sure is just because the store is still new and they’re still building a brand — but an awesome gesture nonetheless.)
Highly recommend everyone check this new Publix out — if only for their subs and baked goods. :)

I’m so beyond happy that publix is beginning to open stores in NC!!! As a native Floridian who moved to NC six years ago, i’ve been extremely underwhelmed with the grocery stores NC has to offer. I visited this store a week after their grand opening (hoping it wouldn’t be as crowded), and while it was still extremely busy (to be fair I went late in the afternoon on a Sunday) I was thoroughly impressed! Prices are similar to those at Harris teeter (and as another reviewer mentioned, you don’t need a VIP card to get the discounts). The store is extremely clean and organized, and despite the fact that they were VERY busy, they weren’t out of any items that I needed.
You can even order subs online and pick them up in the store. They bake their bread fresh and use all Boar’s Head meats for their subs. Their fried chicken is some of the best I’ve had, and don’t even get me started on the prepared deli sides and delicious baked goods (the buttercream frosting is the stuff dreams are made of).
The staff is extremely friendly and helpful! When I shop at Lowes or Harris Teeter, I’m lucky if I even have someone available to help bag my items after spending hundreds of dollars on groceries… but at Publix, they actually designate staff to help unload your cart at the cash register, in addition to staffing multiple cashiers and baggers (who always offer to assist you to your car with your groceries). In my opinion, Publix blows other local grocery stores out of the water, especially when it comes to customer service! Publix really is a place where shopping is a pleasure.

Publix just opened and is a very nice store. It seems to serve the Harris Teeter, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s crowd. If there is something special you are looking for + regular groceries, Publix fits the bill. I like the online sub-​sandwich ordering ahead of time and all departments stay open till store closing at 10pm. No sub club points though, but their breads and bakery items are made daily on the premise. The bread with the sandwich was very good. The cupcakes are made with butter crème frosting, however, I still favor Goody Box Cupcakes by far still for quality and selection.

Finally, one of the best things to come out of Florida has reached NC! Publix offers a variety of grocery items from everyday staples to exotic ingredients, as well as a bakery, deli (try the subs!), and pharmacy. If you have the Publix app on your phone you can order subs for pick up and avoid the wait, or you can use the in-​store kiosk located in the deli department. The newly opened store is well organized, well stocked, and full of friendly employees. Come get a taste of Sunshine State shopping in North Carolina!