Grocery store as tourist attraction?

That reminds of when my youngest was 8 years old we were in Miami and he spotted a 7-Eleven, he was very excited and begged to be taken inside as he'd heard references to them from TV programmes, films etc. I never did establish exactly what he expected to find but suffice to say he was very disappointed.

A bit similar to Foxy John’s hardware store in Dingle. It’s also a pub. I’d also say that the Mercado Mayfair and Bank of England pub in London are each reminiscent to what you’ve described.

I love visiting grocery stores when I’m in Europe.

One of my favorite things to do is poke around a grocery store in Europe and find oddly (to me) flavored things to try--sometimes I just take pictures of them and amuse my friends. Budapest's Spar had hot chicken flavored peanuts (strangely tasty, flavoring was a crunchy shell) and also a bacon version that was not so tasty, plus the expected paprika flavored Lay's potato chips and peanut flavored Cheetos (really good!). Poland had Wampire Cheetos--a bit too garlicky for me. Tallinn had another variation on chicken flavored chips--"eat and fly" was the perplexing slogan on the bag.

Cleveland OH

HEINEN’s converted the Cleveland Trust Company into a beautiful supermarket in downtown Cleveland. Just standing under the massive dome alone is inspiring.

In Austria, France and Germany grocery stores/food market chains are part of the cultural itinerary to be checked out, not only as a place to pick up the 1.5 liter of mineral water but also to see the varied can and bottled goods and their prices, ie, to see that which is not available back here, relative to size and price, especially in France.

As for paying: in Germany and Austria even though the "tap" function is there, I almost always cash. In France I use the "tap" function.

Grocery stores can be quite intriguing culturally - I recall going through a nice, modest little grocery in Honfleur and thinking ‘hmm, they really don’t refrigerate the eggs’.

In Austria, France and Germany grocery stores/food market chains are part of the cultural itinerary to be checked out,

For me, it's the case anywhere I go, not just these three !

Agree - it's not all just art & architecture. Department stores are interesting too. It's contemporary life.

Phred - I've been inside one time and wasn't wowed. It felt like just a usual Spar but in a nice building. I was expecting something special. My Spar down my street has the same stuff.

For special grocery stores in Vienna, there is Julius Meinl, an Austrian style Harrod's food hall (but not nearly as amazing). I think that the best food shopping experience is at the Karmelitermarkt on a Saturday morning.

I love that there are fellow grocery shop tourers too! I too find that outside of the US and Canada, I find visiting grocery stores very, very interesting. You get a little sense of what a local might shop at, and a bit of what some unusual products there are.

Recently was in Portugal and we were at an Aldi (we also have Aldi in the US) and this one carried something I have never seen before: wafer cookies that the middle instead of creme is marshmallow! Never seen that before so I bought a pack and ate it up in a few days. (And Aldi wasn't the only one we visited. We visited couple of Auchan and Minipreco and a few others. It was interesting to see that the Chinese grocery stores in Lisbon are not too different from the ones I see in some parts of the US; very similar products or I should say some are the same!)

I remember going to grocery stores in Venice too and finding the products for sale quite interesting.

We’ve always loved going in grocery stores. Rice Krispies in Italian made us laugh. Hardware stores are fun too.

Living in these wonderful old cities with amazing public transportation is so much fun. Imagine not needing a car. Imagine how much you save a year not owning and operating a car. Imagine how you are going to get the groceries home on the metro!!

At first I thought my little refrigerator would not do the job, then I realized I would have to shop 3 times a week anyway because I just wasn't going to carry more in my backpack on the metro.

Cans, bottles and packages and frozen things are at the Spar Grocery. Meat at the meat market in one of the old market halls. Produce from the farmers on Saturday and Sunday morning at one of the old market halls. Toilet paper, shampoo, personal hygene from a DM or Rossmann store. "Over the counter" meds, not over the counter here, have to go to a pharmacy.

I think shopping for groceries or anything expands a knowledge of the place. Always a good idea.

Not Europe, but in Toronto the old storied Maple Leaf Gardens Hockey Arena has been converted into an amazing Loblaws Supermarket:
https://tinyurl.com/4rdu4d54

Grocery stores can be quite intriguing culturally - I recall going through a nice, modest little grocery in Honfleur and thinking ‘hmm, they really don’t refrigerate the eggs’.

In the US eggs are washed and sanitised which removes the protective coating on the egg. In Europe most chickens are vaccinated for salmonella so there's no need to wash and sanitise them. The protective coating means that they don't need to be refrigerated. If you remove the coating then the shell becomes porous meaning odours and bacteria can penetrate the shell.

Thanks, JC. I vaguely knew that in Europe there are reasons it is ok not to refrigerate the eggs, but you’ve clarified what they are.

Funny about the eggs. I asked about a year ago, and the thread turned into a science lesson on European chicken and eggs. That and unrefrigerated milk. And storage temperatures. No meat market would pass a US health inspection. Then there is beef. Not butchered at all like in the US. No where near as good as US beef. And expensive. When I can find a good steak it takes a bank loan to buy it, Figure $30 a pound for something that resembles a US cut steak. There are a few grocery stores with a selection almost as good as a typical average size US grocery, but they are few and far between. Most groceries are about 3 times the size of a US convenience store. But there are a lot of them which is good because you have to go often and carry it home so you want them many and close. Packaging is half or less than American packaging. So lunch meat for instance comes in 100 gram packages (think 10 paper thin slices), milk never larger than a liter. Even coke cans are smaller. The only thing larger than the US is beer cans. None bad, just different. And so I dont overly generalize, just my observations in one EU Eastern European City. I am sure Vienna and Paris are different.

The refrigerated vs. unrefrigerated egg thing is interesting. I grew up with eggs sold and stored unrefrigerated (didn't grow up in the US). And unrefrigerated eggs is not just a European thing. It's typically in many other parts of the world.

Sometimes US food safety practices, from an outsider point of view, is overly cautious and unnecessary. It does make me wonder, for example, why peanut allergy is such a thing in the US vs. where I grew up, it was not a thing. Too much caution and protection from the environment leading to a poorer immune system, perhaps?

US beef is widely available at

Grocery stores are also a nice place to make easy contact with local people. The name of the item with a rising intonation will get you directions to the right aisle. I've been baffled by which brand to buy & "asked" other shoppers, by showing one in each hand and asking "good". Often the conversation continues in a mix of their English & my Portuguese or French. People have been very kind & interested.

Then there is beef. Not butchered at all like in the US. No where near as good as US beef. And expensive. When I can find a good steak it takes a bank loan to buy it,

My experience is the opposite. I went to buy a single ribeye steak from a supermarket in California last year and they wanted $25 for it!! That's about £20 and a ribeye steak is far less than that in the UK (although you can spend that much if you want).

My experience of beef in the US has been hit and miss, some very good and some quite poor. The best beef is pasture raised rather than that from huge grain fed feedlots and I would say that the best I've eaten was in Wyoming.

Personally I think the best beef is from Scotland.

US beef is widely available at pretty extraordinary prices, so its not banned in the EU. Buy a USDA Prime NY Strip is $17/lb here in Texas vs an Australian one at $30/lb in Hungary. The most commonly banned US foods are pork, chicken and things with certain food colorings in them.

I poked around the internet and read what I could find on banned foods from the US, none mentioned beef. But it's tge growth hormones that got the pigs banned, so it's conceivable that beef with hormones is also banned. I don't know how prevalent that is.

A quick check. No hormones in certified Angus beef, Walmart beef, McDonalds beef

I love foreign grocery stores too.
There is one in Venice in an old repurposed theatre.
It’s called Despar Teatro Italia, and is on the crowded “main drag” that everyone walks along across Venice.
It’s quite beautiful, and the security guard sits in what was the old box office.

Grocery stores are a great place to get a feel for the place you are in, it doesn't have to be a fancy place either. Many times a regular corner store can give you a better idea of what place you are in.

And it doesn't have to be in different countries. Sometimes different regions can give you different experiences. Like when I visited Umeå a couple of years ago and the local grocery store's largest advertising was for cheap surströmming. And whenever I'm on Gotland, I try to buy a jar of dewberry jam.

A NY steak is about $28/lb here. No hormones, pasture raised, grass fed.

Beef in my area is expensive if high quality, inexpensive if not high quality… as a general rule.

SJ, I think that's the grocery store we shopped this past May. It's close to/in the Cannaregio area, right? And very close to the gelato shop......

Susan, you live in the most expensive city in the US. But fair to say, I live in one if the cheapest.

Grocery stores or any daily activity where you can interact has so much to teach. It's great to get out of the tourists bubble. Once in a European city I got a real estate agent to show me homes. Was just curious how people lived.

Nothing is necessarily better or worse than the US when you look at the whole of things, just different, and that's fascinating for me.

Pat, you’re right.

True Mr E, i live just north of the GG Bridge, and the cost of living here is high. And worth every penny. Amazingly beautiful.
I don’t eat meat, for ethical reasons, so at least i’m not spending my money on that.

We have always loved checking out the grocery stores on our travels. My first trip overseas was to Portugal and I remember seeing eggs next to the onions, but all the cokes were refrigerated. That intrigued me so much.

When we are in Iceland, most of the time we are self catering so we obviously do a lot of grocery shopping. The lamb there is like nothing in the US. Sooooo good! The stores carry a real variety of it. Plus you can buy it pre marinaded, and a few options for those flavors as well.

I also found a new favorite tea there, so on our next trip I will stock up.

A must see for me is the grocery store. Always interesting to see the differences between various areas of my itinerary . Local Mom and Pop as well as chains. You do learn a lot about the culture..besides it is practical. I tend to take long trips and sometimes I just need a break from restaurant meals now and then so I have learned how to navigate.

I don't drink coffee but need a few diet cokes in the morning. ( I never see Pepsi in Europe). So my grocery adventures involve finding Coke Zero, Coke light, etc for each morning. I did find Diet Coke Cinnamon flavored in Rothenburg one year during the Xmas markets. Forget finding Diet Coke cherry flavored. And- finding a bottled drink without sugar and without caffeine is really a challenge- sometimes I find diet Fanta orange. But once I'm in the grocery store, then I look for the chocolate, (this is why I need diet drinks), and the fresh breads and cheeses......

Pat--We saw lime Coke in Iceland. I was really curious and think it might taste ok, but we didn't want to buy a whole 12 pack of it.

I never see Pepsi in Europe

You'll find Pepsi including Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max all over the UK and Ireland and Spain. In the UK you'll easily find Cherry Coke/Diet Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Lime Coke and some other limited releases.

There are also plenty of pubs and restaurants in the UK that only serve Pepsi.

In Germany I have found both Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper. The formulas are slightly different so they don’t taste exactly like in the USA.

When we shop in grocery stores, we buy the grocery bags and keep them as souvenirs. In Paris last month, the grocery next door to the hotel had 5 different ones which we purchased for 99 Eurocents each. A cheap reminder of the trip when we use them at home.

Mikliz, JC, and Stephen, thanks for the info. I'm not too particular, and happy to find either one. If our hotel room doesn't have a frig, I cool my soda outside on the windowsill.
I also bring grocery bags back from European grocery stores!

For Coke addicts, do some research on Zero vs Light vs Diet in Europe. It really matters to some.

Pepsi is especially visible in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, former components of the USSR. Pepsi was the first American soft drink to get a toehold in the USSR.

For Coke addicts, do some research on Zero vs Light vs Diet in Europe.
It really matters to some.

The only difference vs US products I could find was in the EU they use cane sugar in regular coke. Probably healthier. The artificial sweetners in Diet, Light, Zero are the same.

For Coke addicts, do some research on Zero vs Light vs Diet in Europe. It really matters to some.

Although Coca Cola touts that the very same (secret) recipe is used everywhere there are subtle differences.

In Diet Coke and Cola Light different sweeteners are used (Aspartam vs Ace-K/Aspartam mixture).
Coke Zero should mimic the original Coke taste as good as possible. Cola Light contains Citric Acid which has been replaced by Sodium Citrate in Coke Zero, therefore the slightly difference in taste.
Also an influence has the water which comes from local sources near the botteling plants, and the type of sugar which is different in the US and Europe (corn syrup vs beet sugar).

Thank for all the detailed info. I'm usually so desperate to get either Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi I'm not too picky . Thanks!

Just curious OP, was Vienna your first trip to Europe ?

First trip? Oh heck no, I've been heading across the pond for over 25 years.

But this is still the most interesting supermarket I've seen in a long time. Right up there with a good Lawson konbini in Japan.

I'm also a coke addict, which means I invariably visit a grocery store or supermarket within 24 hours of arrival. I love them. There's always something different, occasionally something really interesting, as other posters have explained, and it's also a great place to buy small gifts to take home - Hungarian paprika, Portuguese sardines, small bottles of local olive oil are just a few things I've brought back for friends and family. And I almost forget - Swiss chocolate in Switzerland - what they make for export, even to neighboring countries - isn't as good.

As we are speaking about grocery stores in the Austria page, I suggest to visit shops from the MPREIS chain in Tirol. Most of them were designed by local architects to very modern and interesting individual architecture; a selection of photos are at https://www.mpreis.at/mpreis/architektur

My favorite ones are the one at Niederdorf near Kuftstein, whose front sports tree logs, and the one at Patsch, near Innsbruck, at a relatively high elevation, so that from the parking area you can dominate the landscape of three valleys, right, front and left of you.

Sounds like a beautifully located Spar! Thanks for the heads up.

My general fascination with European grocery stores has faded over the course of many trip. Used to wander around fascinated, spouse couldn't get me back outside, would seek out the opportunity to go in. But now they mostly just seem like European grocery stores, only a little bit more interesting than US grocery stores.