fromage a la Hyde Park

I went to the new biggs Hyde Park today. I was eager to see what they'd done to take biggs and make it Hyde Park. Clearly, the cheap-prices-scummy-atmosphere would not be the same as other biggs. But would it be like a cleaner, newer biggs, or truly grab for Hyde Park Kroger's throat and rip out its trachea?

(I would like to note that both biggs Hyde Park and Hyde Park Kroger are in OAKLEY. Oakley in the house!)

So I needed groceries, and they gave me a coupon for free salad (organic salad...at biggs! holy crap!), so I went. First impression...definitely more stylish than a typical biggs. There's a little cute Awakenings coffee shop in the front. The fruits and veggies section was typically biggs-sized (which is to say five times larger than Kroger's and half as big as Giant Eagle's...ah, Giant Eagle, how I miss thee).

Then I got to the first clear difference. Rather than do, like, market research or something, I think the biggs people sat around and said:

"CHEESE! People in Hyde Park like CHEESE! Lots and lots of CHEESE! We will have cheese and people will come from miles around and buy the cheese and eat the cheese and it will be grand!"

Seriously, I think they have more cheese in this store than Jungle Jim's. And that takes some doing.

However, while there was some you-bake-it bread, there wasn't the good kind that made it worth the occasional venture to the Ridge biggs. Someone needs to tell them that bread goes well with CHEESE. And despite a whole freezer aisle of ice cream, I didn't see any Healthy Choice. The cashier assured me that they must be out, but no Healthy Choice could be a deal-breaker if this continues.

The prices are definitely better than Kroger, and the sushi looked good, although I wasn't hungry so I didn't repeat last week's "I should get sushi...but I'm not hungry....but I'm at Kroger, I might as well........uuuuuugh, I should not have gotten sushi" debacle. The wine section is larger than the regular biggs selection (although it's not hard to beat a couple dozen bottles of Sutter Home White Zinfandel and the odd merlot). And clearly, they have robbed the French of their entire supply of cheese.

So biggs definitely merits a return trip. It's still no Trader Joe's, though. Which reminds me, I still must post my ode to Trader Joe's. Some other day.

Edited to add that I attempted to google image search Giant Eagle to see if I could find a picture of the produce section of, say, the Stow Giant Eagle (Grand Poobah of Giant Eagles...it would CRUSH Hyde Park Kroger like a little bug). And I found myself asking myself, "why are all these freaking birds showing up?" Uh.....