Yes, this store is small, overpriced and the prepare foods section is completely sub-par compared to the nearby Whole Foods. Otherwise, however, it's a convenient neighborhood store and I love the selection of boutique items. The cheese selections are quite good, and the young cheese guy, Harry, is particularly helpful with suggestions and excellent customer service. The desserts are always a hit when I buy them for parties. The store is always clean and the staff are always friendly. I find the prepared sandwiches to be too "bready." The ingredients are high quality but I'd love to have some options that are a bit less heavy and bready. The prepared salads don't include sufficient salad dressing for the size of the salads. Otherwise I find them to be quite good. The meats and seafood department is very good. The selections are excellent and the staff are helpful in making suggestions. I'm not a fan of store-bought sushi but I think they do a good job on the sushi here. read more

For me, Balducci's is a place for special items, and I shop here several times a year. Here's what really impresses me: Not only do they stock Seville oranges, but they actually called me when the oranges arrived, and asked if I wanted them to set some aside for me. Seville oranges are rare in the United States, and they have a very short season. These are the classic oranges used in marmalade. Produce departments in other good stores had never even heard of them. read more

I tend to go to Balducci's once a week primarily to pick up meat. They have the best quality in the area and when we want steak, lamb or pork, I go there. It's a nice display of food and specialty items balanced with some day to day things. I have less problem with the products there than the service ethic. The staff and cashiers in avoid eye contact and are barely civil. I'm friendly with all people and usually can get a decent response from service people in other businesses of all kinds, but at, Balduccis--rarely. I'm guessing it has to do with wages, supervision? What? I often wonder often if the staff there really like or enjoy food. When I ask questions at the cheese counter the attitude is that I am interrupting. So disappointing as I love to talk and learn about food, preparations, etc. read more

A great place to get unique specialty items like baked goods, side dishes, cheese or to-go sushi! Also carries more varieties of Tate's cookies than I have ever seen anywhere else. read more

Oh Balduccis, how I want to love you...yet you toy with me. Overpriced items, small selection of basics, and the $90 special order rib eye roast last Christmas was adequate but not worthy of your lofty name...if only I could love you for your wine selection but I do better at Total Wine in Springfield. read more

I love this grocery store. I don't know if I'm supposed to call it a grocery store though - probably gourmet market is more appropriate. Ok be prepared for prices to be really high, but if you can deal with that then the selection of food here is excellent. The fish, the meat, the produce, the wines, the yogurt (I really like good yogurt and they have a lot of options), the cheese, the candy. The only thing you don't want to go here for is staples like detergent or cleaning supplies or something. They have only a very slim selection or none at all of items like that, because they are really focused on the food. Ok so it's a nice grocery store you're thinking- who cares? There are a zillion good grocery stores in DC. It's just another shmancy chain store. What makes this place special is the service. If you need something and they don't have it, they will scour the country and tap all of their suppliers to get it for you. They did that for me once to find fresh wild blueberries for a recipe. If you are looking for just the right cheese they are eager to help you find it even if it means trying every cheese they have. As an example, I was looking confused in front of all of these chocolate bars one day and a woman came over and asked if I needed help. I explained that I love very dark chocolate but I wanted one that melts really well in your mouth, which is tricky because many very dark chocolates are sort of dry in that way. She listens and then considers the selection and picks up a bar and opens it right up and says, "try this one" - I said, "oh you didn't have to do that! " I felt so bad because a whole bar would go to waste by opening it like that if I didn't like it. She reassured me that it was no problem and the priority was to find exactly what I wanted so I didn't pay for something I wouldn't love. I tried 3 before finding exactly what I was looking for. Now I know exactly which one to get when I go and I didn't have to mess around with buying a bunch that I wouldn't have liked - that is so helpful and rare. One more example -they had a pinot noir on special a year ago that I fell in love with and then they ran out and it was no longer available. I was so sad. I've tried to find one I like as much but I really wanted that one again and like a moron never wrote down the name. The man in charge of wine displays spent several minutes with me to try and remember the winery that produces this specific wine they carried a year ago and haven't carried since. It was a long shot but I thought that if any store could pull a rabbit like that out of their hat, these guys could - and after awhile talking about where specifically in the display it was sold he did! They are so great. It's so luxurious these days to get really good customer service and this Balducci's nails it. read more

Thanksgiving to be thankful for My husband and I are foodies who are still hosting Thanksgiving for the adult children and significant others. This year, for the first time, we ordered ALL the sides from Balducci's and carefully heated everything according to directions and served in our own lovely dishes. We roasted our own wonderful Balducci's fresh turkey, but everything else was prepared. All the sides/extras/rolls/dessert were truly spectacular, and I developed a new appreciation for not chopping onions, celery, and bread for home-made stuffing all Thanksgiving morning. Best of all - the price was quite affordable. BTW, I have purchased a couple sides from other fine competitors, but they were not good enough to return to. Can't wait to see what you all have cooked up for Christmas! read more

If you're looking for fake gourmet, look no further. As others have noted, the location is what inevitably makes me give Balducci's another chance. I am trapped in an abusive food relationship here, people. When I first met Balducci's, it was decent to me. There were good fruit salads to choose from. The prepared foods tended to be okay. I didn't see the same meat in the cabinet for ages. The chicken was sometimes dawn pink as is proper. Over the last couple years, they've had no problem raising their already exorbitant prices. If their standards hadn't totally slipped, this wouldn't have been an issue. More often than not I find stems in the blueberries, rind on the melon, unripe pineapple, and sun damaged strawberries in my fruit salads. If I wanted to select and prepare the fruit myself, I would have. The rest of the produce tends to be on the old side. They should be jailed for storing rhubarb like they do. The empanadas are less than delicious, but at least they're safe from feeling as though you've been poisoned. The temperature in their open cabinets is NEVER correct. I usually select from the back with an open cabinet, but there's no difference in cooling whatsoever. As a result, I never, ever buy meat from Balducci's. The few times I chanced it, I regretted it heavily. I *know* D'Artagnan does not ship things at improper temperature, so it's a crying shame that the store ruins the product. The in house meats are not butchered or trimmed properly. The sandwich counter used to be a redeeming quality of the store. It was nice to pop on over at lunchtime. The sandwiches have got pricier and the filling is nearly not present. You're being charged steak prices for a crusty loaf of bread. The silver lining here is the chicken and avocado sandwich which is sports a nice ratio of meat to bread. There's a difference between the cheese counter here and the one at Whole Foods. There's ripe cheese - like you'll find elsewhere - and then there's BAD cheese, like you'll find here. See the previous comments about cooling. Sure, some cheeses can tough it out. Their cheese folks don't know which is which. I can't even find the flavours of prepackaged food that I used to like. They've eliminated all of my favourites over time. No more jalapeno chips. No more spicy Desert Pepper salsa. They used to carry raspberry filled Godiva chocolate bars. Nope, not any more. Care for a $1.25 3 Musketeer bar instead? I suppose the wine section still has a decent bottle here and there. Some of the niche ice cream brands are worth a try. I'd get the sugar cookies or raspberry cookies all of the time if they weren't like $12 a package or if they sold single cookies. Currently the no sugar added pies aren't horrible, but the crust could be better. Just about everything else in the bakery seems to be sourced from outside the shop, and that's not for the better. The bagels are round bread. I'd expect better from a gourmet store. read more

Just horrible. I got the buffet for lunch. Everything was so dry. The baked chicken was awful and wings we're equally as bad. Over all, it was so not worth the price. In fact it's overly priced for as bad as it is. I'll never go here again. It's a waste of money and a waste of food. read more

Balducci's - a shadow of it's former self. I used to love Sutton Place / Balducci's. They had a deli that was second to none, the best meat & cheese counter in the area and a great bakery. It's all gone. The deli is non existent; it's now an overpriced sandwich shop; the meat counter out overprices Whole Paycheck, the bakery is gone, and the cheese counter is just sad and stale. Wegman's carries 95% of what Balducci's stocks and at 1/2 the price. read more

Completely overpriced. Got food poisoning from an item in their prepared foods. Chicken lemon thyme. I wrote to them from their website. Never received a response. Hope they removed it from the case. Alexandria store. read more

I've been to the Balducci's on the corner of S. Washington and Franklin in Old Town on several occasions, but I have no basis of comparison with other Balducci's locations since my experience with the Balducci's chain is limited to this one store. However, this Balducci's can be compared with its direct competitors in Old Town, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Balducci's is a very similar grocery store concept carrying fresh produce, meats, and fish, gourmet foodstuffs, wines and craft beer, and Balducci's branded products. Still, after walking around the store, I thought its produce section was much smaller overall and very limited in its organic selection compared to Whole Foods. It was even more expensive than both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, yet it looked less fresh than either of them...and that is a deal breaker. The meat selection was good with some items that are not found at Whole Foods such as domestic wagyu, foie gras, ostrich and venison. The fish selection, however, was a bit smaller than Whole Foods, but on par in terms of quality and freshness. Similarly, the cheese section was a bit smaller, but also on par with Whole Foods. The only place that Balducci's surpassed the Old Town Whole Foods was in its wine section. While it's not significantly larger than the Old Town Whole Foods or Trader Joe's for that matter, at least Balducci's inventory was organized logically, by region, unlike the Old Town Whole Foods store, where I can never easily find what I may be looking for. In the end, Balducci's isn't a bad store and it does carry some interesting items. However, it doesn't have enough at a competitive price to make me shop there over Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. When the Wegmans opens up near Fort Belvoir, this Balducci's will be in serious trouble! read more

This review is just for the cheese counter -- I had a very bad experience there. While I was looking over there selection, a gentleman returned a piece of Gruyere because it was too old and ammoniated, and while they were able to get him a fresher piece from a more recent shipment, it was clear that the piece he bought should never have been sold. I bought a small piece of a soft cheese, and was so excited to eat my picnic lunch, and I find out that my cheese is also too old - it smelled like ammonia and was very bitter. I did not find the staff at their cheese counter to be knowledgeable or helpful, which I really resent when I am spending $19/pound on a product. Whole Foods and Cheesetique are both much better options. read more

The same person who sent me the form letter contacted me via yelp and asked for contact information so she could "reach out". I told her she already had that information. No follow-up since then. Thanks to yelp for getting them to take me seriously! read more

I'm reviewing the store and the hot/cold bar. The prices are outrageous here... even more than Whole Foods, and given what appears to be low turnover of products (I've never seen many customers there on a given day), you're probably paying a whole lot of money for not-so-fresh stuff. The hot/cold bar is decent, though. I'm not a fan of the fact that they seem to have the same variety over and over (why shepherd's pie and mac & cheese? I figure that low-cost ingredients=high profit margin), but their baked salmon is pretty good, as are a few other items. Three stars-- good for lunch. read more

Jekyll & Hyde... It may come out to a "C" average--but there's really no middle ground here: In a fairly small space, you'll encounter otherwise hard-to-find produce items, cheeses and salamis, wines, pastas, canned goods... But apart from the pastry counter, I would AVOID any prepared foods for take-home, or fresh meats/seafood. Patronage always seems light, at this store (we've wondered, for years, how they continue in business), so they just don't get the turnover ... stuff sits around, goes stale--while the prices remain premium! It's usually a Friday night, whenever we drop in there--in search of a special taste treat (English cheeses? Prosciutto? A slice of Black Forest cake?) to inaugurate the weekend. But no major shopping....nooooo! read more

Balducci's is generally overpriced, but I go there sometimes because it's convenient to my home. Their overpriced Bratwurst was horrible...strange tasting. The mini baguette, which I thought would be comparable to high end baguettes in Whole Foods, and even Giant, tasted like Wonder Bread....no resemblance at all to a real baguette! read more

Everything tastes better from Balducci's. Even the sugar cubes (from like France) taste better.

Most of the fresh or hot food here, including the salad bar, is extremely overpriced and/or not the best quality. I live near Balduccis and occasionally stop by for a cup of coffee, which is probably the only thing they sell that isn't insanely expensive. If you have a lot of money and can buy what you want, I guess this is the "gourmet foods" place to shop. But why pay for items at Balducci's (for example) pure maple syrup for $8.99, when you can buy the exact same thing at Trader Joe's for only $4.99? Enough said. read more

This place just gets worse every year. Yesterday I paid $4 for 4 slices of ham and it was not looking good today so I threw it out. It was part of their "grab and go" area. I'll no grab and no go from now on. I know for sure their bagels come from Firehook. What is worse is that I have to hear "I have not heated them up yet." when I want to buy only 6. God forbid you ask for a pound of cold cuts that are still in the package and not house prepared/roasted ($6 less per pound). You know they hate you right away. I sit there and watch if they spit in them. They haven't, but they don't like me. Everything is way more expensive than other stores and I usually get grocery delivery that is free when you buy enough stuff you need. I have been in there more than once a day because I like the GuS (grown up soda) and I am a bit lazy. What happens to those trays of prepared food that no one buys next to the cold cuts? How long has it been there? $10 for a small order of chilled macaroni and cheese? And it's less than 16 ounces? The quiche scares me a lot. I think it could be weeks old. Cashiers are nice enough. I laugh at the sushi counter. As long as you just buy the packaged stuff (canned, bagged) and know you're paying more for sandwich meat because you're just lazy... All you. Same here. The kicker is 20 Swedish fish in a container for $6. read more

I used Balducci's catering for my large family dinner and it was perfect. The order was ready and the food was very tasty. The whole experience was good. I highly recommend this for a holiday/large dinner when you just don't have time to cook. Awesome. read more

I do like Balducci's! It's different from Whole Foods in that it offers more high-end food items. For example, they sell more exotic produce & offer Nehaus chocolates. Anyway, I'm writing this review for the cupcakes. I was recently in the area and got the red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. It was quite good and wasn't too expensive. read more

For what you get and for what you pay, there's no way that this place is worth it, especially when there isn't that much to choose from and there are larger options around town that offer comparable quality with cheaper prices. That being said, they do have a great selection of cheeses and they have fresh meat and seafood available. I think their main purpose is to have a not wholly, but largely organic shop where people in Old Town can come and support their haughty needs. The store is connected with Farrah Olivia so you can plop right into the restaurant after shopping if you thought ahead and brought an ice chest with you. read more

Stopped by after walking the Bridge and folks needed to use the bathroom. I didnt have money and that was a good thing! It was like a wegmans and whole foods all wrapped in one. It was a bit pricey for certain things, but i think it was worth it as they had items i never seen before! read more

Because it's not Whole Foods. Because their employees are hella nice and way too happy. Because yes it's that overpriced but damn it you're getting what you're paying for here. read more

So overpriced. The quality of the food here is nothing better than you'd get at Giant or Harris Teeter, and it's much more expensive. I paid $4 for a baguette and it was junk. Bleached, flour and conditioners, etc. The imported meats and cheeses are good but much more than what you'd pay even at Whole Foods. Really disappointed with this store. read more

I stopped in on 12-20-18 to place a Christmas pasta order, because of an emergency. She took the order: lasagna, eggplant parm and salad. They never had the lasagna prepared. No apologies and told my husband he couldn't prove they made the mistake. I will share this horrid experience, and will NEVER return! read more

I love the quality of the food at Balducci's -- when I make the special trip to go there, I expect to pay more. But, I sometimes find the service completely lacking. And, when that happens, I really hate to pay more. This past Sunday, there was no one at the fish counter...and I was the only customer there. I finally started waving my arms to find anyone who could help. After the the bakery team noticed, they started paging, and after a manager came rushing up offering to help, the person in charge of the fish counter finally emerged from the back. I wasted several minutes waiting...instead of shopping. The other irksome thing was that they had a person in back preparing sushi who made no effort to notice the issue and help resolve it. Balducci's.....I want to love visiting...but this last trip has totally set our relationship back. read more

I recently had an event catered by Balduccis. Certain items (beef tenderloin) were great and others not so much. I wasn't at all impressed with the salads and the cheeses were poor quality! It was the type of cheese you'd see in a college cafeteria. Cheddar that didn't even taste like cheddar cheese. We did enjoy the sandwiches and our guests did too. The delivery was on time and order process was seamless. read more

Just saw an update that Balducci's has "extended" Farrah Olivia's lease for a month. What kind of answer is that?

This review is of Balducci's bakery section: WOW. For a grocery / specialty food store, Balducci's has a wonderful bakery section. I think it's much better than Whole Foods and many other bakeries (including Firehook and Bittersweet) in the area. It's my first choice when it comes to celebration cakes or fancy desserts. They also have a great selection of individually sized desserts. I've bought several cakes here and each cakes was beautiful on the outside, so full of flavor, and fairly priced for what you get. The bagel and danish section is small and sometimes sells out, I've also had their version of an apple turnover and I always buy several when I can because they're always good. I've had their mini key lime pies designed for one or two servings, and they're comparable to the key lime pies they sell in Key West, Florida. But the part of Balducci's that I think is special are their specialty cakes. read more

Found this store today by accident. What a GREAT accident! I don't know how anyone can complain about this place! Lots and lots of great food, fresh fruits and vegies at superior quality. The hot/cold bar was impeccably clean. We lucked out because they had lots of sample stations set up today. All the attendants were super friendly as was the staff we interacted with. Yes, it's quite pricey for SOME of the items. Other items were comparable to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I will definitely be back! read more

This grocery store isn't where I go for my regular shopping but it has fantastic sandwiches, cheeses and wines! I love the convenient location and the floral department! Give it a try if you're hosting people for dinner! You won't be disappointed! read more

Why do I live a block from you??!!! I love your salmon and your friendly staff. I think I would go daily if I could afford it.

Went to Balducci's for the first time today and they have made a repeat customer out of me! The food was out of this world amazing and the produce was so fresh and ripe (nothing you could ever find at Giant). I will admit, the prices were a bit high, but it's worth it in quality in my opinion. They carried many unique items that I can't find in everyday grocery stores, which impressed me, because I bake and cook A LOT and like to use unusual ingredients, which I can't find in normal stores, so it was a relief to find a store that actually carried them! I LOVED the outdoor patio and all the little birds that come to visit. The entire setting was really cute :) Overall, this place is great and I will be coming back again. read more

Love my weekly trips here...always find something new! Their prepared food items are awesome!!! Associates are always friendly and helpful and although small, Balducci's always has everything I need with multiple options. Their cheese counter is amazing and everything in their bakery is always delicious!! read more

From the experiences that I have had in the past I never once had a bad encounter with an employee of Balducci's. I love the place and wonderful food. Their bistro meals are properly organized and tasty. The fish department is great quality and I always enjoy their cut fruits in the produce section. I would always be a loyal customer to the Balducci's in Alexandria. I only have one problem, I can't seem to think that a place like Balducci's would allow customers to talk to their employees the way they do. I mean not everyone are always right but come on it is hard for some people to respect others. I just want them to know that I appreciate their hard work and wonderful store. Regards Barbara M. read more

Terrific prepared foods. Great produce. Excellent catering. Short lines. Such a treat to shop here!

Although vastly overpriced, the meat and fish selections are very good. The chicken noodle soup is the best in the city, and the prepared food is generally pretty good. In one year of regular shopping, however, I have met only one employee who is even remotely friendly. All seem to resent the fact that you are in the store and do the absolute minimum when you ask for assistance. Although I have shopped there regularly for over a year, not once has an employee said hello or even nodded in recognition. It's a lousy way to do business. Perhaps that's why the store is nearly empty so much of the time! read more

I could not let another day go without posting 5 stars for Laura at Balducci in Alexandria. I hosted and decorated for a Baby Shower last weekend and needed help with the centerpieces for the tables and a prize for the Baby Trivia Game. Even though I brought in my containers at the last minute, Laura stopped what she was doing and made an arrangement for us to look at. We ordered 8 Baby's Breath centerpieces and a small "Baby Bouquet" as a giveaway. The room was beautiful and the prize a hit with the ladies. Again, thank you Laura for making my event special. read more