TL;DR - This supermarket is overpriced, sells bug infested produce, and is filled with shoppers that will readily bud you in line or ram their carts into you.
In a time and age when major Chinese food marts in Markham like Foodymart and T&T are able to mimic a pleasant experience from the mainstream counterparts, Winco is like a dinosaur of its time.
It reminds me of when I accompany my parents to a Chinese grocer as a child, where it's cramped with an occasional cockroach in the pile of onions.
Prior to personally going to Winco, my in laws have bought me peaches from here a couple of times right before coming by. They look beautiful - plump, heavy and pink. When you cut into them, EACH TIME AND EACH ONE had little fruit fly larvae wiggling around the core.
Today, I needed some frozen spring roll wrappers, it's a prepackaged product sold everywhere else, what can go wrong?
This place was tiny and packed with ppl that happily shove and squeeze pass you.
Passing through the produce section, I noticed some novel items like Japanese lily bulbs, but everyday veggies and fruits are overpriced. Asparagus is in season and all stores are selling for under $2 a bunch...Winco DISCOUNT Special Price: $2.99. This was across the board for produce - some comment on it being "fresher and better quality", but I beg to differ with my experience from their peaches.
Grabbing my stuff and wanting get out of there, the lineup area was a joke. It was smaller or about the size as your regular Shoppers'. There are half cash only and half credit card lanes, with no express lane.
As I line up, there would be families standing oddly next to me (there are more people behind me) and as the line moves up, they try to squeeze their way in. I politely noted where the back of the line is and the lady would mutter "Is that the back?" in Mandarin and stay exactly where she was. I noticed this messy and uncivilized system is not unique to my lane but common to the lanes beside me.
At cash, I was told that there is a $0.25 charge for credit card (under $10?) which is not noted on any of the payment method signage.
Moral of the story, unless you really don't have a better place to shop, do yourself a favour and head over to Longo's next door or T&T down the street. read more