Albany Food and Liquor

Wonderful neighborhood spot. They pack a lot of stuff into a small store! Grocery stuff but also tons of beer selections. Super nice and friendly staff too.

YES!
wonderful corner store, nothing fancy here, but stocks all the essentials, including a great beer selection & store-​keepers are really nice.

In a city that is moderately more expensive then the city I grew up and started to buy whiskey in, this place has good prices. There’s an above average (albeit not much more above) beer and wine selection and cage free eggs. Thanks, Albany Food &b Liquor for being around the corner.

I am so lucky to have this great corner store a mere four doors away. I always shop here first. Gus and Hilda and their sons know all the neighbors. If I decide to have friends over on the spur of the moment I know I can whip something up with a quick visit to Albany Food and Liquor.

Albany Food and Liquor gets my first superlative Unilocal rating of 5 stars – not because it’s the absolute best market in town, but because it’s a perfect expression of its ilk: a neighborhood corner store that caters to its neighbors.
This store faces an increasingly common dilemma in Logan Square: how to respond to the growing cohort of economically advantaged young professionals and hipsters who want upscale products while still providing the service it always has to its wider and less affluent customer base.
The store came under new ownership a number of years ago and since then, has gotten better and better. Gus, the proprietor, is good about stocking products his customers ask for. We wanted natural peanut butter, he stocked it. We asked for whole wheat bread, and now it’s always on the shelf.
Albany Food and Liquor was stocking organic non-​perishable foods and free-​range eggs before the Dill Pickle Coop was on anyone’s radar, and with the Dill Pickle now open, Gus has only expanded his organic/​natural options. They’ve had the best buy on Rice Dream rice milk in the neighborhood for years now.
And the beer and wine selection is wide enough that I can drink Old Style when I’m broke, but I don’t have to go to a fancy liquor store when I need a nice bottle of wine to take to a friend’s dinner party.
I shop at this store at least 4 times a week, and I can say with authority that it is neither dirty nor shady as other reviewers have claimed. It’s in an old building, and doesn’t have the gloss and glitz of a new place: it’s fluorescent lighting, basic metal shelving, and lots of stuff crowded into a small storefront. It’s function above form, for sure, but it’s not dirty in the slightest.
Another reviewer groused that the owners weren’t friendly enough. But just like most normal people, they respond in kind: if you are friendly to them, they are friendly to you. If you prefer to keep it all business, that’s fine too. Don’t expect them to be solicitous, but they will always be courteous and professional. And Gus always wants to know what products you want, so if you don’t see something you’d like, just ask.
The days of Albany Food and Liquor being primarily a liquor, lottery and cigarette store are long behind us. This is a good, convenient all-​purpose neighborhood market. If you are the kind of person who’s afraid of shopping at «bodegas filled with winos,» do not fear: these days, chances are good that most of the customers you’ll encounter here are just like you.

This is the place I’m talking about when I say I’m going to «run to the corner store» and I will never buy avocados anywhere else, they seriously have the best I’ve found in the area (sorry Dill!). You’ve got yr fancy (ish) beer (Bells, Three Floyds type stuff — and of course the lovely Tecate), yr juicy-​superfoody-​smoothie-​whatevers, Maria cookies (the best), and even yr free-​range organic eggs. And seriously good avocados!
There are a few comments from people who say its shady and dirty, but, as someone who goes here at least three times a week I must disagree. Disorganized? Yes. Metal gates on the windows? Yes. The occasional wino? Yes. But it’s a corner store on Fullerton with cheap prices on Logan Square-​appropriate staples. As far as my experience goes, the family who runs the place is nice — it is true that they will not trip over themselves to usher you in and waltz you around, but they have never been rude to me.
Don’t be afraid friends, it’s good for all yr Alpha King, TP, Amy’s soup, cheap tortilla, soy-​milk, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, plantain chip, bad coffee needs.

Great hours (open till 11:30 weekends, 10:30 weekdays). Surprisingly good selection and prices for a little corner store. They have a lot of Mexican staples as a good deal of bougie/​hipster/​organic food. I know big supermarkets are usually cheaper than corner stores, but some things aren’t that much more here, and it’s convenient, so in the summer when I can get produce from the farmers’ market I end up getting a good deal of my food here. Also in bad winter weather.
Also good beer and wine selection, including several local/​regional breweries. Everything from Goose Island Oatmeal Stout to Bell’s Oberon to PBR to Bud Light to Tecate.
Also, the people who say the family that runs it aren’t nice are full of BS. They will not immediately pretend to be your BFF and be fake nice to you if that’s what you are looking for. But they are definitely nice. It took a while (I’ve been going there regularly for over a year) but the guy that works there always says hi and asks me how I am, even when I am grumpy after a long day and don’t seek it out. One time I wanted to grab something but knew they would probably be closed since it was 10:40. I walked by and was turning around but the owner saw me coming, opened up the door again, and said «Come in!»

The selection is awesome and the price are good. But damn, the family that runs it is not nice. I have been in there 100+ times over the past couple of years in the neighborhood, and not once can i get a smile, welcoming gesture or any sense that they appreciate the tons of business i transact with them. STill better than ⁷⁄₁₁. But dag, regular customers are your bread and butter, show them you love them. Hopefully i can update this reveiw someday saying they are better… No more frowns and scowls and surely attitudes.

Nearly everybody loves their local bodega in every big city across this country. But this isn’t even my most local convenience store anymore and I still love it.
The reason is that this store goes above and beyond what most of its ilk carry. The name brands on sale here are unlike what I have seen at any similar place in Logan Square or elsewhere. Tonight, for example, I ran out of soap (well I ran out this morning but realized again I had ran out tonight). I have sensitive skin so Ivory is my soap of choice. Knowing that the 7 – 11 on the corner would chances are only have generic «soap,» I walked the extra couple blocks to Albany Food and Liquor and, voila, Ivory in a four pack. Along with five or six other kinds of soap (both American and Mexican) that I could have bought.
This convenience store seriously completes with a supermarkets in what it carries selection-​wise. I have made emergency trips there for pretty much everything (food and otherwise) and the only thing I left completely empty handed once.
It can definitely be classified as being being poorly «organized;» but really despite the lack of signage, the system makes total sense after a time or two there.
And until you’ve had to live on the cornucopia of bargain items that it stocks (4/​$ 1.00 wafers and Spaghetti-​Os are two prime examples) you can’t really appreciate this store to its fullest.
It even keeps decently late hours (10:30 on weekdays; 11:30 on weekends) to grab alcohol from its huge coolers of that as well on the way to a central Logan Square party (and has been pointed out, if you want the hard stuff they even stock a wide assortment of that behind the counter).

Well, I like this store. It’s not «clean», but the people are nice.
They have all the things I need in a pinch.
They have fresh lemons/​limes, beer, ice, tonic, soda water and most importantly CHEAP VODKA! They sell Irish vodka Buro — 1.75 liter bottle for $ 16.99. That’s a sweet deal. We entertain often and it’s great to have a nice place that sells the stuff we need in a for a reasonable price.
It’s not the best place — but I always feel good about giving these nice people my money.

Shithole corner store. Crowded and dirty. Everything looks like it was thrown onto the shelves in no particular order. Most people in the store seem to be buying Wild Irish Rose or 40 oz of Malt Liquor. High beer prices for anything above the grade of Busch Light. A convenience store that is not convenient. Go elsewhere unless desperate.