Oddities @ Woodman's

I had gone up to Wisconsin to score some brats for grilling during the game and Woodman's was a must stop for their wide selection of brat buns. While I was there I saw the following (I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures. I didn't have my camera with me, so I used the crappy one built into my phone).

There was a recent discussion about pasties, that U.P. treat. The question was raised...ketchup or brown gravy. Woodman's says Hah! Neither! Use this stuff.

Pasty Sauce


If you're like me, you want as close to the actual ballpark experience as
you can get while watching the Sox in the World Series on TV. Now that experience is one step closer because Woodman's sells food service grade Secret Stadium Sauce. All the taste of the ballpark can be yours at home!

Sysco Quality Stadium Sauce


Enjoy the game. GO Sox.

I had found Woodman's during my day's in Madison and after my first visit I knew exactly what a SUPER market should be like.

Now I know that in Chicago we are blessed with all of are locally owned different ethnic grocery spots but some days I just feel cursed that we also have Dominick's and da jewel's as our main suppliers. Why do they think I should believe there is only one product of every item and the price is a "savings"...its not a savings even with the preferred card.

Rant coming...Im at Woodman's and I get 4 lb's of fresh made Usinger's brats for $6.99. At jewels they have inferior product for double that.

I get the same Vienna sports peppers i get at the Vienna outlet but they are $2.29 at Woodman's and $3.99 at the outlet and $4.49 at Jewel.

Jewel has a small case of bad cheese selection, Woodman's has its own aisle for cheese spreads!

Jewel has French's and maybe one other selection of mustard, Woodman's has more selection of mustard than you thought existed. Same for pizza...ever seen the frozen pizza selection at Woodman's? ever seen the hot sauce selection?

Jewel has these self checkout machines that drive you crazy...Woodman's has charge free ATMs.

Jewel has all the "local" regional family owned brands like Uno's pizza and Vienna dog's (WOW!)...Woodman's has pasties from Stella's in the UP, Kringles from all sorts of places in Racine.

Hey c'mon your being unfair, Dominick's has Tom-Tom tamale's BUT so does Woodman's. In fact Woodman's has a better giardinara selection than all the jewels and Dominick's outlets combined. Better prices too.

Jewel has coca-cola, pepsi, sprite, mountain dew can's...Woodman's has all sorts of regional bottled pop including 4 packs of Sioux city root beer for $1.99.

Woodman's has green river...Dominicks and jewel dont even carry green river and its made in Chicago...Woodman's has great micro brews available at ridiculous prices...Jewel has 312 and Old Style.

To be continued...as long as Jewels and Dominick's dominate the area.



Woodman's
7145 120th Ave
Kenosha, WI 53142
(262) 857-3801
http://www.woodmans-food.com

They also have 12oz packs of Nueske bacon for $5, which is a very nice price, 1/3 cheaper than most other places in the Chicago area.

I love our independent markets, and I hope Woodman's joins their ranks by moving a bit closer to the City than Kenosha, Carpentersville, and Aurora.

If there is a small producer in Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota, you can be sure that it will be carried by Woodman's.

jlawrence01 wrote:If there is a small producer in Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota, you can be sure that it will be carried by Woodman's.

No Kewaskum bacon. I have to go to West Bend to get that.

Went to the Carpentersville location yesterday. Picked up another bottle of Secret Stadium sauce $2.99, which I think is a pretty good sauce. Saw that they had Buddy Road House sauce too, although I already have a bottle from America's Market.

Beautiful corn at 5 for a dollar. Didn't see the Mexican Coke that was there on my previous visit, although I forgot to look for it. Uncle Dougie's Wing Marinade, great looking asparagus for $2.29/lb, Ten pounds of Moo & Oink rib tips for $13.50, and M&O beef hotlinks for $6.99 a package.

A few odd things however, no lamb to be found. It seems like all they have in the fresh meat is beef, pork, chicken and turkey. I was also hoping they would have wood chunks for smoking, but the only chunks they had were mesquite, not even hickory! Why is it that mesquite is so popular? When I recently went to Berger's all they had in the way of chunks was mesquite and hickory. I'm still looking for alder, oak, cherry, or apple. Can't find these anywhere.

In addition to everything else that has been mentioned they also treat their employees very, very well. I have been working part time (weekends) in the deli at the C'Ville store since this past Jan and have loved almost every minute. The pay is outstanding (quarterly bonuses and time and a half on Sundays and the management treats us like equals. Another plus everyone who shops there seems to be in a great mood; great prices and an outstanding selection will do that for a shopper.

One secret cost savings secret is that we mark the substantially mark our meat down when it is within a couple of days prior to the expiration date. Just last week we marked down a pallets worth of chicken breast from $2.69 a pound to $1.49 a pound. We have deals like this fairly frequently.

imsscott wrote:A few odd things however, no lamb to be found. It seems like all they have in the fresh meat is beef, pork, chicken and turkey.

In the Carpentersville store, they generally carry Chiapetti's lamb and veal products.

mousec1 wrote:One secret cost savings secret is that we mark the substantially mark our meat down when it is within a couple of days prior to the expiration date. Just last week we marked down a pallets worth of chicken breast from $2.69 a pound to $1.49 a pound. We have deals like this fairly frequently.

For ages, they would also mark down the ground beef and other beef cuts to 0.99/lb as well as a bunch of variety meats.

BTW, I was surprised at what they pay their hourly weekend associates ... a whole lot MORE than the union grocery stores.

jlawrence01 wrote:

imsscott wrote:A few odd things however, no lamb to be found. It seems like all they have in the fresh meat is beef, pork, chicken and turkey.

In the Carpentersville store, they generally carry Chiapetti's lamb and veal products.

We do carry Chiapett's lamb and veal products but they are sold frozen.

Between Woodmans in Carpentersville and Caputos in Algonquin, we NEVER set foot in Dominicks any more. The only time we hit Jewel is when they have some of the President's Choice items we like on sale. The only thing we really don't like about Woodmans is their meat, but lately everyone's meet has gone down hill in quality and up in price. Woodman's cheese selection is amazing, and their regular prices beat everyone else's sale prices.

It would be nice if their sale items, clearly tagged in the store, were either printed on a sale flyer or available on a web site, so you could plan what you're shopping for in advance.

"Pasty Sauce "

Only thing a Yooper uses on his pasty's, eh!-Dick

j r wrote:Between Woodmans in Carpentersville and Caputos in Algonquin, we NEVER set foot in Dominicks any more. The only time we hit Jewel is when they have some of the President's Choice items we like on sale. The only thing we really don't like about Woodmans is their meat, but lately everyone's meet has gone down hill in quality and up in price. Woodman's cheese selection is amazing, and their regular prices beat everyone else's sale prices.

It would be nice if their sale items, clearly tagged in the store, were either printed on a sale flyer or available on a web site, so you could plan what you're shopping for in advance.

Out of curiosity what is it that you don't like about the meat dept? I work in that area on the weekends and I haven't heardy any customer gripes about the quality of the products that we sell.

There was a Woodman's in Algonquin, did it close??

MikeW665 wrote:There was a Woodman's in Algonquin, did it close??

Nope, never in Algonquin. Their first Chicago area store was in Carpentersville, at Randall & Miller, near the Menards and Dominicks.

I understand there is now another one in the Aurora area also along Randall, but I've never been there.

HI,

For someone living in Round Lake Beach, the closest Woodmans is on Route 50, just east of 94, over the Wisconsin border.

Regards,

The Woodmans is actually in North Aurora north on the Orchard Road exit @ I-88.

Woodman's
151 Hansen
North Aurora, IL.

HI,

I was at the North Aurora location last summer. It has almost an exact similar floor plan as the one I frequently visit in Kenosha. It was great for me, because I knew where everything I wanted to buy was located.

I'm sure there are some differences, though they are subtle.

Regards,

I have never been to Woodman's, what makes them special compared to other options?

jimswside wrote:The Woodmans is actually in North Aurora north on the Orchard Road exit @ I-88.

Woodman's
151 Hansen
North Aurora, IL.

Actually, there is a Woodmans located on Randall Rd in Carpentersville.

Woodman's
2100 Randall Rd
Carpentersville, IL 60110

jimswside wrote:I have never been to Woodman's, what makes them special compared to other options?

A couple reasons come to mind:
Decent prices;
Massive inventory. Many of the threads here in Shopping & Cooking that mention Woodmans / Woodman's are replies to requests for locating unusual groceries;
Woodman's has a particularly good selection of Midwestern products that don't have great distribution here locally.

j r wrote:

MikeW665 wrote:There was a Woodman's in Algonquin, did it close??

Nope, never in Algonquin. Their first Chicago area store was in Carpentersville, at Randall & Miller, near the Menards and Dominicks.

I understand there is now another one in the Aurora area also along Randall, but I've never been there.

I used to pass it everyday on Randall on my way to work in St Charles, but I couldn't remember exactly what town it was in.

We stopped out at the Woodmans in North Aurora on our way back out west today, and I found Woodmans to be interesting.

My observations & purchases:

- Woodmans deli seemed anemic & tiney with sparse selection, after my earlier visit to the bounty which is Caputos'
- decent looking, and well priced produce
- cheap milk
- interesting chicken products
- very crowded


Purchases:

- daisy brand natural casing hotdogs(my favorites as a child, we used to eat them raw).
- Kerry Gold unsalted butter(I have heard good things about this butter and wanted to give it a try).
- Klements stadium brats(got hooked on these @ Miller Park)
- Bucky Badger horseradish

some other niche items caught my eye, and I will return some day when I am in the neighborhood.

Ahhh, Klements stadium brats! Something unavailable in either KC or Montréal... Dang! no matter how good it is where you are, there's ALways something missing! When I lived in Whitewater WI, little did I know that this day would come.

Enjoy those brats jimswside!

Geo

Geo wrote:Ahhh, Klements stadium brats! Something unavailable in either KC or Montréal... Dang! no matter how good it is where you are, there's ALways something missing! When I lived in Whitewater WI, little did I know that this day would come.

Enjoy those brats jimswside!

Geo

thanks, I was pleasantly surprised by all the regional items that Woodmans actually had on the shelves, although I saw it mentioned upthread I guess I underestimated what they would actually have. I wanted to walk down every aisle and spend more time there to see what else caught my eye, but we had other stops to make.

I used to shop at the Woodman's in Janesville, which is about the size of Navy Pier. But it's a funny place: the meats, both produce and deli, are just fabulous. And the cheese section has every Wisconsin standard-seller that exists, but basically nothing foreign, and none of the Wisconsin higher-end cheeses, none.

Strange place, Woodman's.

Geo

I thought it was odd the Woodmans I was at didnt accept credit cards, just cash, check, or debit card. It didnt seem to be hurting business with long lines at every register. They must like saving the credit card processing fees which seems to allow them to keep their prices low, and competetive.

Geo wrote:I used to shop at the Woodman's in Janesville, which is about the size of Navy Pier. But it's a funny place: the meats, both produce and deli, are just fabulous. And the cheese section has every Wisconsin standard-seller that exists, but basically nothing foreign, and none of the Wisconsin higher-end cheeses, none.

Nothing Foreign???

They've got Stinking Bishop! And Jarlesberg swiss. And probably a few others if you really want me to take a careful inventory next time I'm there.

But they are based in Wisconsin, so I fully expect them to carry a good assortment of Wisconsin cheeses & sausages.

I've wondered about folks that go to Wisconsin for cheese, and stop at the Mars Cheese Castle. They have all sorts of cheese and other products from around the world. Nothing wrong with that.

But I don't go to Wisconsin for Jarlesberg that I can get at just about every grocery store here in the Chicago area. I go to Wisconsin to get Wisconsin made cheese & sausage from the local producers.

Right next to Mars is Bobby Nelson. Virtually all their cheese and sausage is local Wisconsin product. For those who haven't been there, Bobby Nelson was the wrestler of which the holds were named for. His daughter, son-in-law, and their kids now run the place, but there are still a bunch of photographs of famous wrestlers from the old days hanging up in the store.

My daughter is now the 4th generation of our family to shop there for cheese.

j r wrote:Nothing Foreign???

Last time I was at the Janesville Woodman's [which, admittedly, was 3 yrs ago] they had a shelf about 2.5ft long with imported cheeses. Or, at least cheeses with imported-style names. Not more that 10 in number I'd say.

And of course you're right: you don't buy *good* Wisconsin cheeses in supermarkets, in Wisconsin or anywhere else. Carr Valley, for example, has a couple of places to go, including their home, an outlet in Sauk City, and the city mkt in Milwaukee. But that's about it for them, and they make some awfully good cheese.

But none of it is at Woodman's, that's for sure.

Geo

Jim, we missed you at Woodman's Saturday but we were there about 9 am. It is our regular go-to shopping place as the North Aurora one is about 10 minutes away from our house. The Asian - Mexican - International aisles are really interesting for shear variety as is the entire store. Just once you have to up and down each aisle and see ALL that they have! Thge liquor department is pretty extensive too.

LikestoEatout wrote:Jim, we missed you at Woodman's Saturday but we were there about 9 am. It is our regular go-to shopping place as the North Aurora one is about 10 minutes away from our house. The Asian - Mexican - International aisles are really interesting for shear variety as is the entire store. Just once you have to up and down each aisle and see ALL that they have! Thge liquor department is pretty extensive too.

We were there about 12:30, and yes I did like their liquor dept as well.