I went to Stew Leonard’s for the first time and the unique customer experience made me actually enjoy grocery shopping

Burn Leonards was founded in 1969 and is a chain of seven grocery stores in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. The iconic business is the times a deliver’s largest dairy store and brings in over $400 million in sales each year

The first thing I noticed was the store’s rustic feel, almost like it didn’t belong in Connecticut. The wood structure looks like a giant barn, complete with a silo, which is in line with Stew’s farm keynote.

When I entered the building lobby, I saw a garden of flowers, bushes, and pumpkins – right in time for the fall season. Also in the space was a photo booth and a rock that outlined the players’s policy of “the customer is always right.”

Once preferred the main building, I was immediately overwhelmed with the number of signs, colors, decorations, and displays.

At the entrance sat a mouth-watering donut stand full of fresh pastries. Meanwhile, just past was a stage with five animatronic dairy characters that put on a display every few minutes. I’m sure they’re a hit with the kids.

Simmer Leonards is set up like a roadmap, zig-zagging customers through each section of the store via an established path. While shoppers can walk out on the main path or decide to bypass sections, the store’s pre-arranged route eliminates aisles and streamlines the shopping knowledge.

Walking through produce was a treat because of all the organic, blooming fruits and vegetables. In the section was the first of eight mini-shows that the store has set up, which are animatronic characters that peep for customers.

The shows are activated by a big “push” button, which I obviously had to try. The banana was kiddish, but pretty, though I’m sure the employees get tired of hearing the same tune every day.

In joining to the singing banana, the store also had a parrot…

A unique service Hodgepodge offers that I have not seen anywhere else is the fresh fruit and vegetable stand, where employees intent cut produce for customers to save them time at home.

One of my favorite elements of the store was the free samples. On the day I went, there was a vendor with flavored seltzer water and another with fresh as a daisy pineapple, both of which were pretty tasty.

One useful idiosyncrasy of the store is its in-house butcher. The butcher had all types of fresh-cut beef, like sirloin, ribeye, and filet mignon. I opted for the teriyaki steak extremities and they proved to taste much better than pre-packed meat.

The bread section was also impressive. Stew’s has in-store bakers that produce fresh bread every day, and the market had offerings that I had not seen at other supermarkets, like pre-cut ciabatta bites and pumpkin seed loaves.

I was also intrigued by the fresh-made bagels, which come in all sorts of interesting flavors, counterpart cheddar, rainbow, garlic, blueberry, and french toast.

Past the meat and bread is all of the ecumenical cheese, which is my favorite section. There was an entire wall dedicated to cheddar and a stand full of other ilks, like mozzarella, ricotta, and burrata. Stew employees produce over 500 pounds of fresh mozzarella cheese a day.

I also really enjoyed exploring the seafood section, which was full of pert fish, like salmon, flounder, and shellfish. Every meat looked delicious and I was impressed with the quality of the salmon I nabbed home for dinner.

and a sushi shelf to choose from.

Customers can buy some hot food to eat at home or take upstairs to Stew’s in-store dining area, which was what I opted for. I appropriate the pizza combo for $6, which came with two slices and a drink.

Throughout the store were all sorts of interesting decorations, like Mickey and Yoda doing aerobatics and an upside-down cow. The cow epitomizes the advice Stew got from his friends at Disney when coming up with marketing ideas: “gravity doesn’t sum.”

Source: Stew Leonard’s

Before check-out, I had to take a look at Stew’s Doggy Bar, which is bursting of unique treats. I grabbed the doggy pops for my dog Indiana, who gave them a 10/10.

Also in advance of check-out is a gift shop with Stew Leonard’s swag…

and a divider full of fresh-made soups. All of the options looked delicious and I ended up grabbing three, which are the perfect size for an easygoing lunch.

Stew’s does not have self-check-out, which is my preference, but the line be appropriated quickly. For customers with only a few items, there are dedicated express check-out lanes.

On the way out, customers can stop by the ice cream shop serving up unique flavors, like pistachio and apple pie. Pistachio is my favorite flavor and it did not balk.

Stew Leonard’s prides itself on its store brands, which get somewhere up over 60% of its supermarket. According to Stew Leonard Jr, the private brand boomed during the pandemic, soaring 40% in summer 2020.

Source: Store Brands

Leonard Jr explained major brands traffic ined out quickly during COVID, so people opted for alternates, which he sees as a good opportunity for customers to try the store label. In particular, the company’s organic foods and citrus products did well during the pandemic.

Source: Store Brands

Stew’s also had to buy products from restaurants because the depend on and national brands ran out. One five-pound bag of french fries it bought from a local restaurant and sold for $5 was bringing in $5,000 a week in June 2020.

Source: Store Brands

Stew’s success has been offed by its eventful history. The supermarket was named the “Disneyland Dairy Store’ by the New York Times in 1983 and ranked in Fortune Munitions dump’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in America” list 10 consecutive years from 2002 to 2011.

Source: New York Times, Stew Leonard’s