I'll preface this with stating that this is my experience with this store. Your experience may be very different. And remember all experiences are subjective.
Village Market (VM) has three locations. I normally visit the Central Lake store, but occasionally the Elk Rapids store which is much bigger with many more food selection options. For the purpose of this review I'll concentrate on the Central Lake location. The store has a clean, well-kept exterior but has a small parking lot and an awkward entrance ramp which curves uphill and can be slippery. While the Central Lake store participates in the VM gasoline discount club, they don't have gas pumps - so I save them from their Elk Rapids facility.
The interior of the store is always clean and straightened. There's not a lot of choices for certain products, but that's understandable for this charming store's size.
The staff always seems happy and welcoming. They usually initiate a "hi!" or "how are you" as I enter the door. The isles are not super wide, but stock employees are more than willing to step aside to let you pass. They also offer the service of carrying your groceries to your car for you at no charge. They also have Senior Wednesdays which offer 5% off for those over 55 as well as a Veteran's discount program.
While not chilled, they have quite a variety of 2 liter sodas which rotate on sale nearly every week.
They have plenty of breads and chips, but the dairy section is fairly small. The butchers do a superb job on cutting and cleaning meats for presentation. They're very good at trimming-off extra fat - improving the quality of their meats (especially pork products). The butchers are also great at taking special requests (eg: could you slice me a 2" thick ribeye steak?". They also pretty regularly keep both freshly sliced beef liver and lamb chops available. The meat case is fairly small, but well stocked.
They carry standard vegetables, but rarely anything of a scarcer variety. Frozen foods are somewhat limited, but a nice variety. Same with their liquor isle. They do have a nice selection of wines, but not so much for beer.
All-in-all you can't go wrong at the Central Lake Village Market - just don't expect the same variety selection as the larger competitor. read more
