Uniontown PA has 10,000 people and two grocery stores.  Shop n Save and Walmart.  Those were our choices all summer and neither of them was really a good option.  Sure, we could get the basics but the produce was lousy.  Although I see Walmart as a necessary evil, I hate shopping at Walmart, especially on a regular basis.  But Walmart was better than Shop n Save.  At least we could do all our shopping at one time.  I hate shopping at Walmart.

When we moved to Harrisburg in October, shopping got fun again.  The Giant Food Stores in Harrisburg are wonderful!  Because Tom and I had spent the summer shopping at Walmart, we loved shopping at Giant.

Giant is a slightly upscale Krogers.  The stores are bigger with a wonderful produce section, butcher shop, deli counter, and even a food court.  Most of the Giant stores have a sandwich shop with some hot food and a salad bar.  But we went to one Giant in Harrisburg that had a Panda Express and a Mexican restaurant inside the store!  Eat, shop, stay for hours!  And, when you went to check out, there were plenty of cashiers and checkout lines open.

One of our favorite things about the Giant was being able to find all the foods we haven’t been able to find all summer.  They have Boar’s Head low-sodium deli meats and cheeses.  They have Keebler Elf original cookies (not just double-stuffed like Walmart, which is way too much frosting).  I found no-salt pickles.  And, of course, the Giant Food Stores in Harrisburg carried a full line of Hershey’s chocolates.

Tom and I were only in Harrisburg for three weeks, but we really enjoyed grocery shopping while we were there.  Now that we are back in Columbus, we have our choice of good grocery stores again.  We went shopping at Krogers today and it all felt good and familiar.  No more Walmart – at least while we are in Columbus.