Dave and Charlotte’s No Frills

There are a lot of PC items that are cheaper at No Frills than Loblaws for the same product, so why pay more?
Well, the Front Street No Frills is a nightmare to park at, so I often come to this No Frills instead, especially since they have a gas bar that is usually 2 – 3 cents cheaper than other gas stations.
This store is not well stocked and the lineups — especially on weekends — can be crazy long to check out, so shop at your own risk!

Seriously rude custmer service and cashiers, stupid Farida cashier told my dad she didnt drag him to come here. WTF do they not teach these idiots any manners. I will never go to this place and if you want some better place to shop go to Dufferin mall one. This place sucks specially cashiers no manners also the supervisor stupid old woman.

If you want to spend an hour in hell, shop here. Bruised produce, rude cashiers, demented owners. It is a truly gross experience, I only go to grab the most basic things, never produce or meats.

Boy for a No Frills, this location is a bit snooty. Hopefully you’ve been here before & there’s no need to ask any floor staff where something is. ‘Grunt & point’ I call it. Besides that, there can be some great bargains here. Loss leaders like Kraft peanut butter at $ 1.97 a litre to get you in the door. Awesome price. Good frozen food specials too but don’t buy just bc you’re there. Some prices are def ‘Loblaws’ & not so cheap.

This store sucks balls every time I go in there is barely anything stocked, their bread section is awful and a lot of times there is bread or buns that have gone moldy. Their meat section has the worst selection of meat and is also barely ever stocked. The owners are nasty and always look pissed off and are very rude and disrespectful to their employees, heard one of the owners giving an employee shit for something stupid and on the floor in front of customers. I will not go here

Hours on Unilocal is wrong, this place closes at 10pm, not 9pm. Same as all the other no frills, end up here because the one by my house closes at 9pm

HUGE and CLEAN! I would love to shop there on a weekly basis but sadly I do not have a car and I don’t plan on breaking my shopping cart going down the stairs at Pape station. My friend and I went there to do our Thanksgiving Day shopping. Great prices, great selection of all things.

This location is amazing! It has a huge parking area and for those who drive they have a gas station here as well!
I really like this location because this store is huge compared to others in this area and No Frills generally has cheap pricing for all their products.
What I love about No Frills is their $ 1 deals they frequently have. This location is also very accessible to those in wheel chairs. I’ve never had any problems except that they don’t accept credit cards. So if you’re goin to come here cash or debit!
— CL

Decent if I’ve forgotten something or need canned items, but otherwise I’d much rather do most of my shopping at the fruit and veg stores on the Danforth at the top of Logan.

I was here today for the first time in months. The last time I was here, I was super annoyed b/​c the cashier couldn’t seem to ring up a turkey and a ham. (No lie). This visit was notably better. In general, I’m not a fan of the No Frills shopping experience. It seems really cluttered. I’m happy to note that the produce section looked ok. I’ll come back.

This No Frills is great. The staff are helpful, friendly and efficient. The store is well laid out and the selection is great. The helpful guy who returns your cart for you is the sweetest chap.
Also, if you’ve ever had to shop at the HELLISH No Frills at Coxwell and Gerrard you will be glad to know this one is nearby.

I liked this one. There was lots of choice, and catered to the neighbourhood with lots of Asian flavour. However the produce wasn’t as fresh as I’ve seen at other No Frills. But they had things like Bak Choy and Man Tou and a whole noodle aisle.
It was also nice to see some Spelt Bread and Sticklings Spelt Muffins in the bread section.
The meat section was bright and nicely lit. You have a choice to get your PC Pre packaged Chicken, or the no name brands, or in a bag like in the chinese grocery.
There’s a drug/​pharmacy section to get all your hair/​body care needs.
There is also a pretty good organic aisle for gluten free and natural products.
TIP: This is also the home of a NO FRILL GAS STATION. Go fill up first and you get superbucks to spend on groceries (at any No Frills or Loblaws brand store). COOL.
Hah! This was my 700^th review.

I’ve been shopping here for 2 years, and almost every time we go here they are out of Organic 2% and 1% milk. It sucks since this is our local store and we shop here 75% of our grocery trips and end up having to take our business elsewhere. I’m not sure if this is a supply problem, or an ordering problem, but it’s a problem nonetheless. How are people supposed to support organic food if they can’t buy it? I am not able to find an email address so that I can communicate with the dairy managers so that they will stock more.

BACKGROUND:
First, it’s important to note that No Frills is a chain that lives up to it’s name. DO NOT expect the checkout clerk to bag your groceries for you, or cater to you beyond the reasonable expectation of «get your groceries and go». No Frills truly lives up to it’s name.
Second, they’re a division of George Weston Ltd., parent company of the dreaded Loblaw’s which, coincidentally but not surprisingly, ALSO does not bag your groceries. Though you pay a premium for shopping there, the premium means you only get a full-​service delicatessen and the store has a little more variety. If George Weston were still alive, I think we’d all like to give him a swift kick in the nuts for cheaping out on us.
Here we go!
EXPERIENCE:
This No Frills must have gone through some significant changes because the produce was not-​that-​bad. It was actually more-​than-​passable but NOT something I would leave to linger in the refrigerator for several days and expect to miraculously remain «fresh». If you want that, I highly suggest the Big Carrot on Danforth near Chester, where your lettuce will remain fresh for days, if not weeks (and will also be full of organic goodness, and cost you a load of cash, which I should remind you we ARE in a global recession).
You can get almost every in-​season all-​season fruit and vegetable you need/​want here at Dave & Charlotte’s No Frills, including some bonus produce that may be on sale from time-​to-​time. But come early or come often, because those items are bound to be so cheap as to run out of stock VERY quickly. There is no deli, but plenty of packaged deli-​meat for your Monday-​to-​Friday brown bag lunch. Bread selection is quite basic, and while there is no «bakery», they do have bread bins with baked goods that came from somewhere that is fairly decent.
Since this location is on Gerrard Street near to Little India, you’ll find the basics and more for any South Asian dish you’ve got in mind. Frozen food selection is extensive if you’re a bachelor on a budget, and there are all the staples of grain, meat and canned goods that you’d normally find in any store, and of good quality too.
Service is the problem at every No Frills and Loblaw’s I’ve ever been to. It’s actually a problem at EVERY grocery store I’ve ever been to in Toronto. I’m from western New York State where you get a smile and a greeting and your choice between paper or plastic BEFORE the scanning begins at checkout. NO five-​cent fee for a bag either! I would take four paper bags with nothing in them for the cat to play with at home and it wouldn’t be a problem, so this Canadian grocery store experience has been a significant adjustment for me.
Alas, your checkout clerk gets paid the min, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get! Price check for the guy ahead of you in checkout? Prepare to shift checkout lanes or check your smartphone for emails because it’ll be awhile! That being said, the checkout people are there to scan your groceries and dump them on the conveyor belt. I didn’t see any re-​usable bags for purchase, so if you didn’t bring your own, you’re SOL baby.
HELPFUL HINTS:
— Bring a quarter, cause you’re gonna need to unlock your cart from the bay.
–Bring cash, Interac or MasterCard. They have no love of the Visa card.
— Patience IS a virtue. After all, where ARE you going to get four heads of romaine lettuce for three bucks in this neighborhood? Food Basics sucks and you’ve got mouths to feed, especially your own.
For the extra few minutes you’ll spend at checkout, you can get all the necessities here for a price that’s lower than the other guys. But grocery shopping already sucks enough without the lack of service, and even though it’s No Frills, it wouldn’t kill the people working here to at least pretend they care about you… especially since they don’t have to bag your fruit.
Three stars.

Wow this place has super long lineups. There are 10 cash out tills but I get the same situation no matter when I go. 12 people lined up in a zig zag towards a normal checkout and 20 people lined up in a zig zag towards an express checkout.
The produce is usually acceptably fresh and they have good specials if you look out for them. My grocery bill is definitely lower than a Sobeys or Loblaws run, but sometimes I think I’d rather pay the +$ 10 and not wait 15 mins in a checkout line.

UPDATE: I went yesterday and suddenly Veggie Ground Round has appeared on their shelf, along with a very small selection of YVES veggie meat products.
Are Dave and Charlotte on Unilocal perhaps?

I agree with Sarah I that this place felt more like a Zehers, but with the lack of large grocery stores in the city — I have to say that this is one of the better No Frills.
This place has all of the essentials and a great selection of fresh veggies. This location has a lot of unique items and unlike other No Frills locations has a larger pharmacy/​medicine section.
The prices are great, there is a huge parking lot and items that other no frills don’t carry.
Checking out is a bit of a process, and although they have lots of cashiers, it seems that they don’t have them all open at the right time. Also, the lines can get long and make moving through the store a bit hard — stick to the back if you can.
Over all this is my fave no frills — but it’s just to far from my house.

There are two kinds of No Frills in life. The amazing ones, where you walk around in awe saying «this is a No Frills? I feel like I’m at a Zehers!» …and this kind. To be fair, this location is not horrible for the bad kind of No Frills. It absolutely falls into the bad No Frills category.
The good:
— It’s close to my house
— It is honestly very well stocked, especially with dry goods
— They have half of a quarter of an organics aisle
— The guy on the sign (Dave) has a bad ass mullett
— There are several aisles of international foods
The bad:
— The produce is consistently horrendous
— The other people who shop here often smell horrendous
— The lineups to leave are horrendous (There has never been less than 5 people in front of me and I have been here over 20 times. OPEN MORE CASHES).
Will I shop here again?
Unfortunately, yes I will and I will bitterly complain about it every single time. You win my business only because of proximity to my home and because I like myself too much to ever set foot in the Food Basics at Gerrard square, which is a negative star rating.

I get all my essentials at this no frills.
as you walk in you set foot into the produce section which seems to be pretty good. they have all the essential popular vegetables with some extras. there are a few different kinds of mushrooms, that though they may seem a little bit more exotic, are likely the staples of the largest ethnic demographic in the area.
that third of the supermarket shares its space with some fresh bread (grain of salt here), other packaged bread incarnations, and an corridor of nuts. the rest of the supermarket is devoted to what other supermarkets would carry.
where they stand out, or alternately, what is a bonus, is their pharmacy section, the various ethnic foods they specialize in, as in virtually any asian spices and sauces, as well as indian. they even have organic eggs. this is a great for me because you dont have to end up going to a billion places for the things you use on a consistent basis.

Sad to say that this is the closest grocery to my home. The customer service is definitely lacking at this location. The prices are usually better than Loblaw’s and Food Basics, and the place is cleaner than Food basics… but the service stinks. I guess that is what you get when your store understaffs to save money… they also cut back on the friendliness.