Great , but the Seafood and Meat are great ! But, very expensive! Finest at Sea is the best seafood on the Coast , but , you sell their product more than they sell it at the Retail store on Erie street! Local meat from say Berryman Farms and the island products ! One BC, one Island! read more

I have enjoyed shopping at Root Cellar in the past, but recent appreciation for them has made me a more frequent shopper lately. Since I began boycotting Jim Pattison grocery stores like the Save on Foods I live next to, I narrowed my vision to the most ethical locally-owned business I could. Not only is Root Cellar locally-owned, but I just learned that a few months ago, it was sold.... to be employee-owned!! A relief to see it had not sold to another conglomerate, but to the exact kind of business I can feel good about supporting ​ read more

Cute local market with all kinds of goodies! Both organic and fresh! Their produce is super fresh and plentiful and the employees are all so very nice! Loved my local finds of honey, sea salts, veggies and all kinds of sauces and spices. Also loved their premade food selection for grab and go! Great place to go and shop! read more

The Root Cellar - Yum - Grocery Near Me - Saanich, British Columbia

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All of the workers are so very kind! The place has such a good feel when you're inside, and the food they prepare is amazing. I can't leave without picking up there candied strawberries. There's been less and less vegetarian food in the pre-made section I've noticed. Would love to see some more options come back! read more

A truly heavenly market. High-quality fruit and vegetables year-round at great prices. A great selection of meat, dairy, and bread. Lots of products from local or regional farms. Wonderful grab-and-go options in their cafe (we especially like the pork sandwiches and soba noodle salad). Friendly and hard-working staff. We're here every week! read more

This market is a dream, and the good people of Victoria are so lucky to have it close to home. I visited with a friend who shops here regularly, and was wowed by the bounty of high quality Canadian produce surrounding the exterior--bins of beautiful Gala apples, blueberries, impossibly flavorful tomatoes, nutritious pale-interiored sweet potatoes (not the orange-fleshed yams we Americans are used to calling sweet potatoes), etc, etc. It's like a permanent farmers market that's open daily. They also have an extensive plant/garden section, with very knowledgeable staff and weekly deals. I was impressed with their selection of succulents, stocked in a variety of sizes and kinds, and moderately priced (smaller pots were 2 for $8), especially in comparison to what you'd encounter in Vancouver. read more

The Root Cellar - A+++ succulent selection - Grocery Near Me - Saanich, British Columbia

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Used to love this place but lately have had several bad experiences with food going bad before expiry date, avocados not ripening, green beans and lettuce turning bad after a few days. A bit disappointed read more

A wonderful market to grab your fresh, locally grown produce. I love when they have live music, I think it is on the weekends or on Sunday's. It really makes shopping on a busy day lovely. They still carry a variety of imports but source a lot of their veggies from the island and BC. There is usually awesome sales on produce. I would subscribe to their flyer so you get the inside information on whats "Dirt Cheap This Week" via e-mail. A great place to grab organic and ethically sourced meat. They also have a pretty awesome bulk section. I travel 20 or so minutes just to shop there. Love it! read more

I like the quality of produce available at the Rootcellar, and shop there regularly. But I found that the tellers regularly ignore the reduced price stickers on products. This has happened repeatedly. This last time, I pointed out the 50% reduced sticker to the teller. Yet when I got home, I realized she still did not reduce the price. I took my item and receipt back, and requested a refund for the reduced price. The supervisor was rude and disrespectful. yeah, he did refund my money but he also reduced my respect and positive regard for the Rootcellar as a business. My suggestion would to watch the register prices very carefully if you bother to shop there. read more

I stopped shopping at Root Cellar because prices are too high and quality of vegetables is not catching up with the prices, in my opinion. You can find good deals, occasionally. Meats are probably very good, but I can not say for sure as I can not afford to buy any. Assortment is good, but "dirt cheap" statement on their labels seems to be in disagreement with an actual price. read more

The Root Cellar is my favourite grocery store! I could spend hours just wandering around. They have great food, books, flowers, succulents, plants and more. There is a garden attached in the back with master Gardner's to answer all your questions on how not to kill your new, beautiful plants. Inside there is a charming coffee shop, The Coffee Project (not on Yelp yet). The baristas are sweet and passionate about their coffee and teas. Coffee beans, teas, pasteurized and doughnuts are available for purchase also. read more

This place has all the local grown fruits and vegetables you could possibly need/want. You can shop for basically anything - gourmet cheese and meats, fresh bread, even slider buns to go with beef sliders. Most prices are quite good or comparable to other places. Make this place your Sunday shop, everything is good quality. Found this gem thanks to other online reviews when I was in search of good prices for fruits and veggies. This place did not disappoint! read more

Great store! We absolutely love their meats and produce. Their staff is so friendly and helpful; the whole place has a nice vibe and we feel like we can really trust what we buy there. read more

My new favourite place to stock up on groceries! Reminds me of a local whole foods. Amazing fresh local produce at a great price! The cafe here also makes great turmeric lattes! read more

you can always find the best and freshest fruit and veggies here. They focus mainly on local but if you're like me, and can't live without a few things south of the border (bananas, avacados, lemons, limes) they have those too! I love the signage as they try to introduce customers to new or exotic stuff (Jackfruit and okra to name a few). It's great to support local and have everything taste so good! OH! it's chantrelle season! so go and get em! read more

I was about to give it four stars, but I had to do 5 because this place is like the Ultimate Farmers Market! The produce is awesome and the selections are vast. You must come and check this place out when you are here in BC. read more

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I'm so sad I found you on my last day in town but super excited for my next trip. What an incredible produce and specialty product store with the best steak and butcher meat options as well as fabulous salads. I've been singing your praises to anyone who is interested. I will be back.....often! read more

I love this place! I love that's it's local and the prices are honestly fair considering the quality! I wish there was a location out in Langford because I would go far more often if that was the case! read more

What's not to love?! All the produce is locally grown and organic. Huge selection of vegetables and fruit! The chop shop is great as well. We love their delicious double smoked bacon, mmmm. They also have a selection of marinaded chicken wings and they're pretty cheap. The blue cheese wings are my fave. It has a farmers market vibe but it's open year round. The staff are always really friendly. Love shopping here! read more

Great produce an they always have some amazing deals on. Look for the "dirt cheap this week" signs. :) read more

The Root Cellar - Dirt cheap this week ... - Grocery Near Me - Saanich, British Columbia

When I moved away from Buffalo, NY and it's adorable local Co-op, I never thought I would love a grocery store again. Oh Root Cellar, you make Victoria a much better place to live! I got an obscene amount of fruit and veg for $40. And it's all been really stellar so far, as I slowly eat my way through it. They also have great prepared products - I am the happy owner of some amazing roasted red pepper hummus and some fabulous salad dressing and some local brie (though those are not quite so inexpensive). Why would anyone spend 3-4x more money on less fresh, less local produce at Thrifty's or the like when this place exists?! read more

Best place for fresh and inexpensive food. It's hard to shop anywhere else after you've shopped there. Great knowledgeable staff, fun environment, fast lineup and sometimes they have live music ! read more

I love the health conscious environment that this facility offers, it actually represents what I personally believe Victoria itself represents which is both good ...and bad. As a customer, I love the selection and the knowledge of the staff in regards to the products that they sell. There is easily an employee to guest ratio that ensures that you will be assisted in a timely fashion if you require assistance. Unfortunately as an employee this is possibly the worst paying job you could get in the entire city. Due to their massive work force and social advertising costs, they pay their employees next to nothing which is really disappointing considering how community involved they are. It's a staff that you want to be a part of but can't actually afford to. I highly recommend this as a place for your produce needs. read more

Anyone want to spend a ridiculous amount of money on grocerys??? ME TOO! Their prices are absurd. They expect their customers to pay very high prices for very low quality food. I'm very unhappy with the quality of this store. Would NOT recommend. read more

Cannot believe we loaded up our shopping cart, completely not paying attention to the prices, and everything came out to be less than $45!!! If I went to any other grocery store and bought that much produce, I would be looking at hundreds of dollars. Not only is everything cheap, but they offer local produce which is awesome! I am so excited to find such a wonderful place to shop for healthy food and not feel guilty about the price!! read more

The Root Cellar makes me look forward to grocery shopping. Not only do they have local produce and a huge selection but the chop shop makes this place better than anywhere on the island. You cannot find anything better than this. Absolutely amazing! read more

It was better before the "chop shop" opened. not really worth the trip anymore. smells bad. expensive.

Fantastic products and super friendly staff. The only downside is that they may be the victims of their own success as I often find it so crowded that it takes a lot longer than it should to shop there. I keep going back for the excellent produce but if it gets much busier I'm not sure I can keep that up. read more

The most ultimate farmer's market-esque store a wide variety of local fresh produce for an extremely resonable price. I get excited for grocery shopping when its at the Root Cellar read more

My mom and I were at Root Cellar yesterday and grabbed a couple of "Four Quarters" smoked sausages from the Chop Shop to snack on ($6 for two). We got back to the car, opened the package and took a bite. The sausages smelled off and didn't taste like andouille. We took them back in for the deli staff to inspect. They said they smelled fine. After we insisted that they smelled like rotten lunch meat, they opened up a new package for us, which were a completely different colour and flavour... yikes! I suspect the Chop Shop's daily turnover is very low. I get that they want everything to look visually appealing and "full," but customers do not want to pay premium prices for rancid meat!!! I was surprised that the remaining sausages were not immediately pulled from the shelf. I hope they pulled them after we left, but I'm not confident that they did! If I want fresh, quality meat I will go directly to Glenwood. read more

The grocery store of my dreams!! The Root Cellar is full of FOOD - not rows upon rows of highly processed and packaged foods, candies and snacks. I want my daughter to grow up knowing what good food is and what it isn't, and seeing what's on sale in the grocery store forms those opinions hugely. At least half of the floor space in the Root Cellar is filled with high-quality, mostly local fruits and vegetables (which makes complete sense because at least half of every meal should be fruits and veggies). The rest of the store has a very good balance of meats, cheeses, bakery and other items. I do wish the dairy fridge had more to offer, but overall, this grocer is fantastic. read more

The perfect plant shop! Imagine a place where the staff know what they are talking about, and are willing and able to make your shopping easier. I started outside, and found so many organically grown, local, well grown on and cared for herbs, at a price i could spend. I filled my arms, and then went to find a shopping cart. As I was nearing the entrance to the store, ready to drag it all in with me, a lovely woman offered to write me a chit, and grabbed a few cardboard trays to pack my finds into. She kept an eye on my soon to be purchases while i moseyed into the indoor plant wonderland. Every thing was displayed beautifully, the staff were friendly and able to answer my questions and join in my joy when i spotted the plant i had been searching for. It was a great experience, I highly recommend a visit! read more

This place is just awesome. So much selection and much of it from BC. Also really like their local selection of meats, cheeses, and eggs, dairy, etc. They sell my favourite yogert (Fraser Meadow) and if you scout out their dirt cheap specials on produce, I can cross off half the items on my weekly shopping list for my family for about $40! read more

Was driving by and decided to pop in to see what this place was like and boy am I glad I did! It is fabulous! Everything is very fresh and LOTS of healthy, organic options. A great layout, friendly, helpful staff. An overall great place to shop. The line can get pretty long pretty quickly, but it does move fast. Will definitely be back here. read more

Use to be a reliable "farmers market" but now their prices aren't competitive. Their products are high quality, but only shop here if you have lots of money to spend on groceries. read more

Horrible place to work. Hire a lot of new inexperienced students who don't yet know what an ethical work place is. Made me come in to work for 1 hour even though I had an emergency surgery and have heard multiple similar stories from others. read more

So far my favourite thing about moving to Victoria. I've been in this city for two weeks now and my partner and I have shopped here at the Root Cellar 4 times probably. They have periodic case sales (we got 20LBs of great peaches for $26) of fruit, they have tremendous quality and variety of produce, and good prices compared to any nearby store. If you're on a budget, they also have carts with sale items that are still very fresh: day-old bread and almost perfectly fresh vegetables for as much as 75% off. We haven't used the "Chop shop" yet, as we don't eat a lot of meat, but the variety looks great even if the cost seems somewhat high. They also have a great bulk section at good prices. Absolutely, 100% worth a weekly trip, if not twice weekly! read more

I would have normally given this store top billing but my last (and final) grocery experience there was the straw that broke the camels back. I had previously shopped at The Root Cellar on many occasions and normally didn't have many issues, maybe the odd time where something appeared ripe but was rotten once opened at home. That I can forgive but the last time I was there the staff outright lied to me. I had noticed a sign for organic Kale that said $3.99/lb which kale is normally sold by the bunch, figuring they had gotten some kind of good deal and was selling by the pound I picked up 2 bunches. At the register is came up as $3.99 each, when I informed her about what the sign said she had one of the staff check the sign-even though I offered to get it to prove what the sign said. Needless to say the produce worker came around the corner informing that I was wrong and it was sold by the bunch. As I was exiting the store I noticed that the sign that said the kale was being sold by the pound had somehow mysteriously disappeared from where the organic kale was. Perhaps the sign was put up by mistake but lying to my face about the price instead of honouring their mistake is just plain wrong. I'll happily go to the Red Barn from now on for my very fresh and LOCAL produce or better yet my local farmers market. Another great option is Shadow Mountain Farm just outside of Sooke-fresh eggs and veggies where you get to actually speak to the farmer. Don't waste you hard earned money at The Root Cellar. read more