The Fresh Grocer of 56th & Chestnut

This place is disgusting. It smells awful first off. Second, most of the employees have nasty attitudes. Third, they suspect off the bat if your shopping here then you must be stealing too. Customers also aren’t allowed to carry purses or backpacks in the store either. (This isn’t the case at the one at 40^th and walnut.) They’re not even allowed to take shopping carts into the parking to put their PURCHASED food into their cars.

When I saw the sign you must check in your bags… I will no longer frequent thus or any business that has the title The Fresh Grocer! It does not appear to be a welcoming place!

Changing the name doesn’t change the culture!
I don’t understand the conceit of the women of this store. You are constantly ignored. They have no social skills to speak of (unless you’re a cute guy), the best you’ll get is indifference (and tool be happy with that). So far all they’ve done is changed the brand name from fresh grocer to ShopRite (sadly, that’s it.).

I give this place 2 stars instead of 1 because the prepared food section is great and pretty cheap. Other than that, things are overpriced and usually in poor shape. I only shop here because it’s 2 blocks from my house.
I literally NEVER had a smooth transaction at the registers before they installed the self check stations. I felt obligated to watch every item go through and was routinely way overcharged on produce (example: charged for 23 pounds of cherries when I had neither cherries nor any weighted produce near 23 pounds). I worked at Trader Joe’s for a long time and understand that it sucks to work a cash register, but the rude and incompetent workers at this place make the shopping experience adversarial.
Boo.

I suggest that you only go into this market if you have no other options. Avoid this place between the 1^st thru the 15^th of the month, because you will be stuck in line FOREVER! Avoid the already packaged salads and fruit salads they tend to be rotten. The prepared food section is the only reason I seldom come in here for the Chinese food, pizza, or soul food. Some of the staff are friendly and helpful the others, hate to see you there.

Fuzzy photo (new cell, new software, new config — one day I’ll get it straight). But their sandwiches are on point!
Don’t know anything about the rest of the store, but if you’re into hoagies and you haven’t tried this place, you are in for a real treat… let’s just say Dagwood would think he had died and gone to heaven!
Steer clear of the cheesesteaks, though. You would do much better at Gooey Louie’s…oh, you don’t know about that place, huh? That’s b/​c that one is down in the ‘hood! But it’s worth the drive, baby… puts Geno’s and what-​his-​name to shame;)

Usually I make the long trek out to the Giant in Landsdale but lately when I’m in a rush I’ve been stopping over at the Fresh Grocer. The nice thing is that it’s very clean and nice inside. They have a wide selection, including many more ethnic food items then your typical chain grocery store. The downside is that everything is outrageously priced. To make matters worse they don’t have any generic brands so there are literally no cheap options. I will go here if I just need a few things and I’m in a pinch but 99% of the time I’d rather drive 15 minutes extra to go to Giant where I can actually afford to buy food.

I’ve had lunch here twice since I forgot mine and couldn’t quite find much in the surrounding area. (I also didn’t feel like looking for too long.)
There is a large selection of prepared foods ranging from Chinese, sandwiches, soul food, and pizza. My first day lunch consisted of chicken fingers and fries. The chicken fingers were standard… a little better than I expected. The fries were kind of worthless. I didn’t finish them at all. I ate maybe three. My second lunch was a small two piece box of fried chicken, one thigh and one leg. It looked awesome and there was a lot of it. So i’m sure the turnaround is fairly quick and it doesn’t sit there for too, too long. The skin was tasty and crispy. The chicken itself lacked some juiciness but wasn’t enough to be considrered dry. It also only cost me $ 1.50!
The staff working behind the food counter were very friendly and definitely made my experience better.

For my 100^th review I decided to take it back home!!! living in Cali now you just don’t know how much I miss you fresh grocers, there’s no supermarket out here in L.A. or the valley that can compare at least not one that Ive found.
First of all the selection of veggies and fruit are outstanding and always fresh, it makes some of the grocery stores Ive been in produce section look like a back yard flower garden. One thing I hate also all the delicious brands of food that don’t make it to California… Wheres the Bob Evans sausage at? Don’t give me this farmer john bullshit! What about my 4c’s white blueberry tea full of friccin antioxidants huh? Wheres the Eddys ice cream damn dreyers!!! and my Turkey hill blueberry Oolong tea? where the EF ARE YOU…
Sorry I had to get that out, the list of products goes on & on, and im not even gonna get into the Tastycake thing, so yaay now I have a new monthly expense for my imports ;(
Okay now what really makes fresh grocers so special is the deli and cooked food sections it has its own pizza parlor, and a must when I first come to town is the 1 pound Italian Hoagie. You can cut it into fours that’s what me and my uncles usually do two of them will feed four of us! They have any deli meat you want basically, get it hot or cold, and get this its about 7.99! Yea If this sandwich was in L.a. Id be paying about 13 or 14 dollars with tax included… and that might be a long shot!
Oh almost forgot about the seafood and meat section… you name it its there, halal meats also. You can get live blue crabs by the barrel clams mussels lobsters, they’ll even steam it right there in the store, and its pure heaven! the meat case is everything from goat to tripe.
I don’t know why people are rating this one so low. I like it far better than the university city one, its small and not as stocked as a couple of the other ones I went to. This is the more urban one though.
what can i say I miss my fresh grocers its like a long lost love affair… someone pass me the tissue…

This place is Hell on Earth. Sure, the building looks nice on the outside, but the prices are obscene and it is ANYTHING but fresh. Floss is $ 4. Most vegetables go bad about two hours after you buy them. The layout of the store is horrendous, and you will probably be carrying all your items due to the fact that the baskets are usually all in use (or lying around elsewhere). Nobody knows where anything is, and you will probably spend hours wandering the store looking for basic ingredients or items. Your best bet is to get out of there and embrace starvation.
I usually trek all the way to Trader Joe’s on 21^st and Market to avoid setting foot in «FroGro.»

The only reason they get 2 stars is because my cat doesn’t hate their cheap-​o kitty litter and they have 25 cent dark chocolate peanut chews. The rest, well, I don’t have any reason to shop here. The store is kind of gloomy, the produce is overpriced (I head to the Save a Lot instead, which surprisingly has good-​looking bananas and potatoes!), the… well, I could continue, but the point is that nothing is really «worth» shopping here for. Maybe once in a blue moon I will need something that I can’t find at Trader Joe’s, Aldi or Save a Lot (yes, I shop at the cheapo stores and I’m proud of it!), and maybe Fresh Grocer has it. But I just don’t look forward to shopping there like I do with my regular stores.

I love to cook and go shopping for the ingredients so on my way back from Lansdowne I ventured into the Fresh Grocer at 56^th & Chestnut. The prices here are great — when my order was rung up I was pleasantly surprised that I had spent $ 135 instead of $ 200. Their meat department is great — as close to an actual in-​store butcher you can get without going to the Italian market. They have curried goat ready to hit your frying pan at home! Don’t expect to find your fancy ingredients (ie: goat cheese) but if it is part of Southern or West Indian cuisine you should be good. The prepared food selection is piping hot and ready to devour. If you haven’t been to this or the 40^th Street location it is worth a trip in itself. There is a large parking lot and there is usually a hack out front if you need a ride.

Though it might be more convenient, the UCity location is like a crippled version of this larger FG edition, which is on 56^th Street. I don’t know about you, but the cramped aisles and overall limited space at 40^th Street make me crazy. It seems like the only non-​peak hours for that location are weekday mid-​mornings and mid-​afternoons.
56^th Street allows FG to stretch out in all its normal super market glory. It’s just so much bigger. Whenever I have a ride, this is my preferred location. The prices are just as reasonable as they are on 40^th Street, but 56^th has a wider selection and less congestion. Also, the area for prepared foods seems to be a lot bigger.