TOUR: Grocery Outlet - Mt Airy, Philadelphia, PA

Grocery Outlet
Owner: Aaron & Chyrese Hollingsworth

Opened: 2021

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 25 W Hortter St, Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA

Photographed: July 30, 2021

It's time to check out The Market Report's first Grocery Outlet! I remember first visiting a Grocery Outlet in western Allentown, Pennsylvania many years ago and I was honestly quite impressed. It was a totally different experience from the other hard-discount stores I'd seen. The store was clean, nicely organized, and modern looking, but most interesting: almost all the products on the shelves were name-brand products, with some storebrands mixed in throughout. Many discounters like Save-A-Lot and ALDI rely heavily on private label brands. Not only that, the perishables were much better than a comparable Save-A-lot. I'm very happy to see more very nice-looking Grocery Outlets popping up out here on the East Coast, given that it was a West Coast-originating chain. Today, there are four in Philadelphia alone.

Grocery Outlet is also a franchise. This store opened in April 2021, with the other three Philadelphia Grocery Outlets under different ownership -- and all opening in 2022. This one was a new-build store on the ground floor of a residential building. And by the way, although the address is on Hortter Street, the main street that the store faces is Germantown Avenue.

The store is just about 24,000 square feet and very deep and narrow. Produce is in the front corner, with meat, deli, and dairy on the back wall and frozen foods on the right-side wall.

Not only is this store much more appealing than other hard-discounters, the products seem to actually be much better. The produce was excellent, and not very expensive at all. From everything I've observed, Grocery Outlet is a very good addition to our mix of discount supermarkets -- maybe even my favorite discount supermarket I've visited.

The main sale display, or wall of value, is in the front part of the first aisle. And as we continue into the first aisle, you have to remember you're in a discount supermarket...

...certainly doesn't look anything like the disorganized and warehousey Germantown Save-A-Lot.

There's a dedicated section for natural and specialty foods (which they refer to as NOSH -- Natural, Organic, Specialty, and Healthy; the word nosh also being a slang term for a snack).

Again, a very nicely organized and well-stocked meat and deli department. Obviously, Grocery Outlet isn't a full service large supermarket, but as I said, it's the best of the discounters at least in my experience.

The grocery aisles include a solid international selection, which is something that's also often overlooked in the other discount stores.

No unnecessary costs go into decor or store design, but notice that it's not quite as no-frills as Save-A-Lot because the products aren't placed in their cases on the shelves, they are actually stocked individually on the shelves.

HABA and nonfoods are also present here. Agin, a solid selection but not necessarily complete.

Here's a look across the back wall. Of course, no bakery, but there are baked goods here and in the refrigerators.

Notice that Grocery Outlet very clearly and explicitly promotes their focus on name-brand items. It's a very different approach from the private label-heavy other discounters.

I enjoyed my trip to this Grocery Outlet, and I have another one photographed in Pennsylvania too! But that'll be way north of the city. Well, Philadelphia is the city of ACME Markets, but we haven't seen too many yet. Let's take a look at an ACME not too far away tomorrow here on The Market Report!