Comments on: Dexter & N. Maple

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:54:48 +0000

I used to shop at a supermarket in north Kansas City whose motto was “we are a cheap outfit”. The message is no frills but really low prices. That’s the idea here.

They are similar to Trader Joe’s in that they have all house brands and act as their own distributor. Not a gourmet establishment however.

By: anna ercoli schnitzer

anna ercoli schnitzer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Just stopped by to check out Aldi, (and no similarity whatsoever to Trader Joe’s was noted). There is a little bit of everything at fairly low, very reasonable prices but not much variety or choice within different types of food items. A rather surprising fact that emerged at the checkout register was that Aldi takes only cash, food stamps, or debit cards–no credit cards accepted.

By: A2 Resident 50 years

A2 Resident 50 years — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:22:28 +0000

As a shopper who’s preference would be to shop at Whole Food’s/Plum Market and Trader Joe’s, but currently is strapped for money and live on a very tight budget and work seven days a week to feed and take care of my family. This type of lower-grade market serves a very good purpose for those who normally can’t afford the higher priced markets and other’s like myself who struggle just to make end meet currently.

Just like any other market you choose what to purchase, and hopefully look at the ingredient list on the package prior to purchasing.

No one in society is “better than the other”, we just think we are !

By: Rici

Rici — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:28:41 +0000

Trader Joe’s has great prices on many high quality items (like organic pasta, for example) – I was pleasantly surprised when I started shopping there, because I assumed otherwise.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:49:24 +0000

Fred, thanks for the info. I was projecting a big percentage of Ann Arborisms onto your comments and that probably wasn’t a good thing. Knights and Trade Joe’s are pretty resonable price-wise actually but my point was lots of backlash against stores like Aldi’s is class based, many times from folks who don’t have to count pennies. If the quality of Aldi’s is horrible, then I’m guessing they’ll be toast soon enough. But at least the site was cleaned up from what it was previously and that is a positive thing.

By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:20:29 +0000

Alan,

If you knew my family and its diet you’d realize that this isn’t snobbery- based! ;-) We never shop at Plum Market, Knight’s, Arbor Foods, Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s — they are all too expensive and too precious! We shop exclusively at Kroger’s and Meijer’s and I for one welcome our new Wal-Mart overlords in Saline.

Searching my conscience I have to admit that there is a class distinction here — from what I remember of Aldi’s brands, their quality is way below even Kroger or Meijer generics. From a purely personal view, it’s an entire store in a convenient location (see #9) full of stuff in a category I like — food! — that is too low quality to buy — thus my feelings about the “dark energy”. I suppose that’s snobbery, of a sort.

My experience with them in Ohio was awful. It sounds like maybe the Aldi in Canton has some better stuff, I hope that’s true here.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:39:46 +0000

To be more precise, the development made use of the county brownfields program. It uses TIF financing to pay for cleanup and certain development costs of qualifying properties. I don’t know the specifics on this development, but not all expenses associated with development are usually paid for and the TIF arrangement expires after a certain number of years. The program has sometimes been controversial. I believe that it was also applied to the Michigan Inn property.

By: John Floyd

John Floyd — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:53:32 +0000

By the way, does everyone know that Aldi was built with tax-increment financing? That is, they will not pay any tax on the increase in the value of their property caused by its redevelopment. It’s fun to get the benefits of a high-tax community without having to pay for them! But don’t hold your breath waiting for the city to give you tax increment financing on improvements to YOUR property.

Nonetheless, any store that lets Northwest-siders grocery shop without crossing the Jackson/Maple/Stadium intersection can’t be all bad.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:30:05 +0000

Duh. Wonder how I missed the grand opening sign.

I used to live in California, where one local supermarket didn’t allow you to take carts to the parking lot. I can understand a little when I see Kroger carts abandoned by the side of the road along Maple. Before they moved, Ace Hardware on Stadium had poles on them so you couldn’t take them outside either.

By: Cosmonican

Cosmonican — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:50:17 +0000

Not yet mentioned: Sign says grand opening November 20.