Overall Albertsons is one of the more expensive grocery stores in town but that being said they do have a very nice store too.
As you walk in the front doors you are faced with a Starbucks coffee area where you can either pop in really quick & order a latte or other beverage of choice or grab a cup of coffee before you start your shopping trip (no worries, the shopping carts at Albertsons have pretty nice cup holders built right in!). Then there is a nice flower department that is always nicely taken care of & offers a pretty large selection of cut flowers, potted plants & even balloons & and other items one might need as a gift. They also carry seasonal florals & plants (think poinsettias & small evergreens at Christmas, roses & chocolates at Valentine's day, etc).
Their deli department is nice with helpful staff available to slice & package up deli meats & cheeses or help you pack up deli salads or hot chicken. Their fried chicken meal deal is always a hit with our family for a quick & easy dinner option. & we love their pesto pasta salad. They also have a chicken wing bar where you can self serve & pack up boxes of hot chicken wings (both boneless & classic) in various flavors. My teens & young adult children often pick up either wings or sushi from the deli for lunch. Their deli section also offers one of the best selections of specialty cheeses & meats. If you are putting together a charcuterie board you will want to check out Albertsons.
Albertsons produce section is hands down the best in town. Always fresh, always well maintained & they have a wide variety of classic produce (carrots, potatoes, onions, apples, oranges, bananas, grapes & that sort of thing) plus a nice selection of rarer produce (star fruit, kiwi, passion fruit, mango, papaya, jicama, etc.). They have fresh herbs, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, salad mixes & all sorts of goodies. They also have one of the better selections in town for organic produce. However, almost all of their organic produce is wrapped in plastic or stored in plastic clamshell packaging. Which is very non-environmentally friendly full-stop.
Located between the deli department & product department is a doorway that leads you to the liquor store. You can enter the liquor store from it's own front entrance too but if you are grocery shopping & need to pick up some adult beverages you can just pop in for wine, beer & booze..
Back of the store in the meat department. & here is where I am going to knock a star off. Their seafood department always smells bad & has for years. I will admit I am very sensitive to smells but for real the seafood counter does not smell good at all & is especially bad if you are in the store near the end of the day when they putting the seafood counter to bed for the night. It stinks up the whole store. Wyoming is a land locked state so fresh seafood is pretty hard to come by & the seafood counter smell makes me want to not buy seafood here.
On the other hand, there are actual people working the butcher department with fresh beef, pork & poultry that you can buy by the pound as well as pre-packaged meats off to the side. The butchers can answer meat questions & have even trimmed & tied roasts for me & done some other specialty requests.
The bakery department is good & they always have good baked goods such as breads, cakes, pies, donuts, bagels, cheesecake & they make & decorate birthday cakes here as well. I prefer Smith's Food & Drug for birthday cake though, I just like their icing better. But Albertsons is okay too.
The rest of the grocery store is above average with all the general merchandise one would expect to find in a large grocery store (cereal, soups, pasta, shampoo, toothbrushes, cleaning supplies, etc). They have a nice frozen section & dairy section. The store has some of the best options in each section for organic foods. They also have a pharmacy where you can drop off & pick up your prescriptions. It seems that the outside pharmacy drive-through is never open because I never see cars in it. Our family uses Walgreens so what do I know!?
Overall this store is clean, well stocked & I would say geared towards a higher end clientele who likes gourmet ingredients or wants to shop organic. Their cashiers are all friendly & some of them have worked here for years & years & I welcome being greeted by their friendly faces. I never get side eyed for bringing my own bags (when I remember them!).
They have self-check out registers but they also always have a couple of actual registers open with live humans manning them. & I believe they have a "3's a crowd" policy where they try their best to open up a new register if there are more than 3 people in line.
Overall I give this Albertsons location a 4 star rating as it is one of the nicest grocery stores in Gillette Wyoming. But that seafood department stank takes off 1 star because it really makes my nose curl read more
