A love letter to Wegmans

It's such a good grocery store

In honor of Wegmans opening up its first Manhattan store, I thought I’d pen this love letter to Wegmans.

Wegmans is not new — the company started in 1916. But until fairly recently, there were no Wegmans in the greater NYC area. I always thought of Wegmans as being an “upstate” grocery store. I remember visiting Wegmans as a kid, with a friend, when we spent time at her grandmother’s house in upstate New York (technically, it was probably more like Western New York). I thought the store was huge. The locals would proudly show off their Wegmans like it was a tourist attraction. I guess maybe it kind of was.

Over the past few years, Wegmans has opened up stores in Brooklyn, Harrison, and now, Manhattan. I often say that Wegmans is like our version of Publix, the grocery store chain that seems to be ubiquitous in Florida. Every time I step into a Publix, I marvel at its size, selection, and good prices. Wegmans has a similar vibe.

As a New Yorker, I’ve long been accustomed to small grocery stores, high prices, and a moderate selection of items (even more so when I lived in the city). The Wegmans in the suburban New York town near where I live isn’t the closest supermarket to me, but it’s often worth the drive for me (about 20 minutes, although sometimes I will Instacart groceries from Wegmans as well). I tend to go there when I need to stock up for a big dinner (like Thanksgiving) or just because I’m running low on a lot of groceries. It is by far the largest grocery store around, and they tend to have a lot of the items I need all in one place, at a very good price. The organic milk at Wegmans, for example, is half the price it is at the grocery store closest to me. When I needed a somewhat obscure ingredient for a recipe (pomegranate molasses), I was pleasantly surprised to find that Wegmans had it. Unlike Fairway or Stew Leonard’s, you don’t have to wind your way through a predetermined path to shop the store. And unlike Trader Joe’s or some of the other local grocery stores near me, you don’t feel like you’re about to get stabbed to death by another patron over an avocado because the aisles are so small.

I’m a big fan of buying store-brand items (I do this at Whole Foods, too, when I shop there. I feel like their store-brand items are actually a pretty good deal, even though Whole Foods has the nickname “Whole Paycheck”), and the Wegmans store brand items do not disappoint. They consistently have good quality at a pretty decent price. Right now, I have Wegmans brand hummus and kombucha in my fridge, and Wegmans brand canned beans, pasta, and tomatoes (and many other things, I’m sure) in my pantry. Wegmans is also known for their great selection of premade items, like sandwiches, bakery items, sushi, etc. I recently purchased a pumpkin coffee cake from the Wegmans bakery to serve to guests and it was delicious. I also recently bought a challah from the bakery; also delicious. These are items I don’t always have the time or, in some cases, the skill (I don’t know how to make a challah!) to pull off. Wegmans to the rescue!

The other day I was talking to some friends during my son’s baseball game. “I went to Wegmans,” one of my friends told me. “Because you keep talking about it!” Yes, it’s true. I’m a Wegmans evangelist, and I’m converting people to the Way of Wegmans. The aisles are wide, there’s a bounteous selection, and the checkouts are fast. And the food is very, very fresh.

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