This is a pretty standard Fareway. It's not nearly as big as the one in Independence, but I…read morecertainly don't always feel like driving 20 minutes to go to Indee. It's very clean, and it's a very well-taken-care-of store. They even do a great job of getting in some of the newer types of food products.
The shelves are usually stocked, and while they don't have the variety a big-box store does, this is one of the few places in town to get a good selection of groceries. Okay, it's pretty much the only place in town, and it puts the grocery selection of K-mart or Shopko to shame. I haven't had any particular issue with things being regularly out-of-stock, and they seem to do a decent job of keeping the shelves stocked.
Cashiers have always been nice, and they do a good job of customer management here. They'll call up more cashiers when the lines get long, and I've never waited more than a couple minutes to check-out. Very satisfactory in terms of most stores in Oelwein (and most stores, period. Very good line management)
I still don't understand the aisle organization in the store, though. There's water on the far side with some groceries then there are some aisles of cleaning supplies, then we have aisles of cookies, and then refrigerated and then frozen. The aisle organization makes no sense, and despite shopping here regularly for over a year, I still have to look through nearly every aisle when I want to find something.
Parking lot is nice. I've never had any issues parking or getting out of the parking lot. Unlike some of the other lots in town, this one isn't in disrepair or going to pop a tire from their potholes.
This Fareway does NOT have a fresh bakery, but they do have some bakery items. They do have a full-service meat counter as well as some types of health foods (though not a lot) like almond milk or soy milk. There is no bicycle parking, but in hilarious Oelwein fashion, there is horse parking.
Prices are pretty good. Not great, but not insanely high either. If you buy the items that are on the weekly sale (especially the front page of their ad), you can get stuff for cheaper than you could find in Waterloo or Cedar Falls.
The fact that Fareway employees go out with the carts to load up your car drives me absolutely insane, though. I mean, insane. I'm sure some people really like it, though, but I'd rather just deal with it all myself.
Final thoughts: I'm glad this is in Oelwein or I'd have nowhere decent to get groceries. It's a surprisingly great store for this area, and they've done a good job of taking care of the property and the stock. It's obvious that whoever runs this Fareway cares about presenting a decent appearance and isn't just relying on the "this is the only place people can go" factor. I enjoy shopping here (aside from the aisle organization).
