I went to the new market on Saturday as part of my Saturday grocery shopping routine and was quite happy with what I saw. I had heard that Le Stock Pot was moving their kitchen supplies over to the new store and there was indeed an entire section for all the high quality knives, pots & pan and other kitchen gadgets that were available at the old location.

The market also has a bright produce section right up front with a dairy case at the back and shelves of the same kinds of oils, vinegars, relishes, jams, condiments of all sorts and other food stuffs that we were used to seeing at Le Stock Pot. There is also a butcher section for fresh meats, a Deli area for sliced meats and cheeses, an Antipasto section that has various dips & spreads like hummus, antipasto, salsa, spinach dip etc., a salad bar and a cafe that serves sandwiches and coffees. They also have a section with bulk coffee beans and a rack full of linens that used to be in a small room at the old store.

Here are my thoughts on what I saw. I liked most of the layout of the store. The produce was up front which was nice although with it up front they are going to have to make sure that it is always full and fresh. A less than brilliant looking produce section might just send customers away before they even get into the store. The dairy case was just another dairy case and unless they are going to carry things like rice milk, soy milk, almond milk, greek yogourts and other specialty items then it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the items in the store.

I liked the Deli section. It will make for some good competition with the deli at the Co-op and is a lot larger than the old one at Le Stock Pot. Again, instead of carrying the same things as the Co-op they need to make sure that while items may be similar that they keep a variety of items not found anywhere else. I was very pleased with the produce on this visit. The product was fresh and everything that I purchased or checked prices on was a fair bit cheaper than the same product at the Yellowknife Co-op or Extra Foods. For example: Red Peppers were $4.50/kg at Nico’s and were both over $11.00/kg at the other 2 stores; Bananas were $1.23/kg at Nico’s while they were $1.70 at Extra Foods and $1.93/kg at the Co-op; a large Cauliflower at Nico’s cost me $2.58 while the same thing at Extra Foods would have been $3.59 and $3.49 at the Co-op; an Avocado at Nico’s cost me $0.79 while the same one at the Co-op would have been $2.59. Quite a price difference if you ask me and as long as they keep it up, the consumer will be the benefactors as the other 2 grocery stores will be forced to drop their prices.

The salad bar product was good and fresh and the antipasto bar had a good variety of items again all looked pretty fresh. The kitchen section was large and bright which is good and bad. There are lots of items but probably the same amount of items that was at the old store. I kind of like the small cramped area at Le Stock Pot though and I found it a little more intimate.

Ok, a couple of things that I didn’t really like. The first was butcher shop area. While the area was a continuation of the deli, the product looked like it had been sitting a while. The beef and pork looked like it had started to dry and the skin on the chicken looked like it had started to darken and the salmon filets didn’t look as nice as the ones I buy at Extra Foods. I also didn’t like the location of the cafe. It is situated up front beside the check-outs with its 2 tables and seemed to add to the congestion of the area. The items at the cafe look good and they are made fresh so that is always a positive. The last thing that I didn’t like was that they were not ready to go at the tills. I spent half an hour walking around the store looking at what was there. When I got to the till it took another half hour to check out and there were only 5 people in front of me. It appears that many of the items were not in the computer and check-outs were slowed as people had to check prices. I had 8 items to purchase and 6 of the 8 items had to be searched for as prices were not in the computer. Not a good way to end a first visit. One last thing, exiting the Center Ice Plaza parking lot is like exiting the mall that M & M Meats is located in. Almost impossible to turn left and turning right takes you no where unless that is the direction you live. It is only going to get worse as new stores open at the Plaza.

In all, Nico’s Market will be on my regular shopping schedule once the bugs are worked out. I think I will leave the Butcher Shop alone too until I see a busy, regular turnover in the product. I think that Nico’s gives the people of Yellowknife a viable alternative to shop and they offer a good variety of specialty items the other stores don’t carry. It will definitely be interesting to see how this venture turns out. I hope it is a success. You can read more about the market at YKOnline.

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