What's Lidl Like?

Hey Readers! Happy weekend!

Lidl in Gastonia/Grand Opening Day photo cred: Gaston Gazette

Whenever something new comes to town or close by, we have to check it out! A new Lidl (rhymes with needle) grocery store opened up ten days ago in Gastonia and one in Shelby. Tim and I decided to check out the Gastonia location last weekend and then we went back again yesterday for a Date Night destination. For the curious, here's my impressions about Lidl and these are my opinions only, I wasn't compensated by Lidl.

So Lidl is a large discount grocery store with the prices about the same as Aldi. They have the weekly specials or "new surprises" including a larger selection of clothing. I noticed Heidi Klum's Esmara brand of clothing there. They also run Super Deals which are deeply discounted prices and Fresh 5 which is discounted produce and meat, with some discounts running for 4 days, and some for 3 days.

The biggest draw for us was the bakery! Oh my goodness, the pastries! The bread! The vegetable quiches for .99! We got a box of pastries last week and here's what we got this week, clockwise from top left:

Hazelnut filled croissant, .99 each; cinnamon pinwheels, .59 each; white chocolate macadamia cookies, .59 each; maple pecan braided pastry (this is SO GOOD), .99 each. Not pictured-pretzel rolls, .59 each; Vanilla & chocolate twist pastry, .99 each; apple turnover, .99 each. The bakery selection is about 1/2 pastry, and 1/2 bread. We haven't tried the loaf breads yet but it all looked good. I was eyeing the olive ciabatta bread which also comes in jalapeno.

I grabbed a box of decaf k-cups last week, those were $4.29 for a box of 12. I'm drinking a cup now after eating 1/2 a maple pecan pastry, and it's really good and strong. They had a good selection of k-cups, most under $4.00. I'm going to try the donut shop blend next. As a special next week, they will have a box of 36 fall flavored k-cups for $9.99. Flavors are pumpkin spice, apple crumb donut, cinnamon roll, and pecan pie flavors. I'm not a fan of pumpkin spice or apple, I'm a peppermint kind of gal so I'm going to hold out for a holiday flavored box.

The big door buster specials we were wanting to buy were mostly out of stock. Mom sent me with a list to get block cheese for .72, pizza for .99, sweet potatoes for $1.49, and 100 oz. of laundry detergent for $2.64. The only item that was in stock was the sweet potatoes. I noticed there were empty shelves for the door buster specials, including raisin bran for .84 and a sewing supplies box for .99.  I'm thinking it's supplier growing pains since Lidl just came to NC and everybody wants to get in on the discount grocery action. The specials start on Thursday and run through Wednesday, so I suggest going on Thursday. Hopefully the supplier issues will resolve. They did have lots of items in stock aside from the big specials, and the produce looked really fresh.

So I grabbed the bag of sweet potatoes and a gallon of milk for Mom (since Camden drank all her milk last night, ha!) for $2.19. I noticed yesterday Aldi dropped their price of milk to $2.17, just saying. Tim got a gallon of chocolate milk for $2.19. We picked up a dozen eggs for .36, a Lean Cuisine Marketplace meal for $2.50 and I pay close to $3.30 for the same thing at Bi Lo. Tortilla chips for .95, avocados for .49 each. We got a bottle of Moscato wine last weekend for $3.99, I believe. It was good, I would definitely buy it again. Picked up another bottle of sweet red wine for $4.99, we haven't tried that yet. Tim bought a big package of St. Louis style ribs last weekend and he seasoned them and we had those for lunch last Sunday. They were GREAT! I wish I could find our receipt from last weekend but it was good deals.

The store was really clean, despite the throngs of people coming through there. Lots of employees were around, cleaning and putting out stock. There was more than two registers open, which is a gripe of mine about Aldi. The restrooms were clean, even at 8:30 pm on a Saturday night. I thought it was kinda cold in the store, so dress accordingly if you are cold-natured.

I'm thinking Lidl will give Aldi a run for its money. This store in Gastonia is right down the street from Aldi! At Lidl, you don't have to pay for your grocery cart and they have the little carts and the regular size carts, plus the mini carts with the flags on them for kids to push/run into you with. Like Aldi, paper bags are .07 and you can buy plastic and resuable bags too. Or you can do like us and grab a cardboard box, more sturdy that way. The prices were comparable for some things but really lower on other items. Lidl offers coupons through their app, such as .50 off a bottle of barbeque sauce.

We want to check out the Shelby store soon and see how that is. Overall, it's a very nice store to be a discount grocery store with much more square footage than Aldi. If I'm ever in Gastonia or Shelby, I'd definitely make a point to drop by but maybe not take a special trip just to go, unless it was a super discount special. Click here for the write-up from the Gaston Gazette with much more information.

Y'all have a great rest of the weekend, stay dry, and I'm going to see what else I can sample from the pastry box before Anna and Camden get a hold of it :)

Until next time,
Melissa