Hey everyone!! Happy Friday!
I hope you all have some great plans for the weekend, I sure do! I’m meeting up with some blogger friends Friday night, maybe going to the Chipotle Cultivate festival Saturday, my big 20 miler Sunday, AND I’m puppy sitting Molly all weekend! But before the weekend begins, I wanted to share with all of you an experience I had yesterday. I had 2.5 hours in the middle of the day where I had no class, so first I decided to eat my packed lunch for dinner (I eat lunch and dinner at school on Thursdays) and I headed to chipotle for lunch! I was jealous of Chelsey’s enchilada recipe so I wanted something Mexican.
After I wanted to kill some time (instead of being productive…) so I walked over to the Walmart Neighborhood Market near my school. I’d never been in one and thought I’d check it out. Umm. I was impressed. My cousin is going to hate me for this, but we’re supposed to be getting one in our neighborhood soon and now I’m selfishly excited. Not that it’s Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods awesome, but it carries things neither of those stores do and for way less.
The bad thing about them coming is that the ACTUAL neighborhood markets, owned by small business owners, will probably loose a ton of business. That’s what I dislike about them coming in. The stores survived a Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood, but I’m afraid they won’t survive this which makes me really sad. It’s hard in the city, you want cheap places but you also want to keep small businesses. But I’m rambling here, haha, we need to get to the point of this post, which is my assessment of the store!
Let me take you on a tour: First there was a huge produce section:
And the now obligatory gluten free section:
And an amazing Greek Yogurt section! I was really impressed and found some great finds. Both Danon and Yoplait have low calorie, high protein and LOW SUGAR flavored Greek yogurts. That has always been my issue with some other brands, but these were impressive! I haven’t tasted them, so you never know, but it looked good!
They had almond and soy milk (weirdly only Silk brand products…):
And this was a great find: they had a huge (and cheap!) selection of flavored extracts! I had no idea some of these existed!! Butter? Banana? Raspberry??
I had planned to not get anything since I’d have to carry it home along with 3 big books, but I couldn’t resist! I got maple and caramel. I put the caramel into my protein ice cream that night, and WOAH. It was good. Really good.
Last but not least, I was shocked at the liquor selection! I still can’t get over the fact that in Chicago you can sell liquor just about anywhere, even Target and 7 Eleven! I got used to South Carolina, where you had to have specific stores for alcohol and couldn’t sell liquor anywhere else. Also it couldn’t be sold after 6pm or on Sundays. Haha, it took a lot of planning ahead.
They even had a cider I’ve been wanting to try!
So, there you have it. I was impressed by Walmart. In writing.
What do you think of Walmart Neighborhood Market?
What’s your favorite extract flavor? What flavor would you invent? I’d invent birthday cake!