Aldi - Redlands

ALDI is an interesting store concept. The chain originates in Europe (Germany, I believe), where their shopping markets tend to be smaller; and their inventory a bit more specialized. Over the past decade or so, ALDI has taken this concept to the USA. You 'll certainly notice a few similarities and differences to the larger chain grocery stores out there; which I 'll go over here.So first of all you 'll notice is their shopping cart model. You have to rent a cart... for a quarter! You heard me. The carts are chained together with a locking mechanism attached to each cart that unlocks when you put a quarter into it. To get your quarter back, you chain your cart back to the others in the cart pen, and your quarter is released. This is an interesting spin on the honor system that works surprisingly well and you almost never find the parking lot with carts left abandoned here and there. And don 't worry, if you do not have a quarter, you can go into the store and ask for a cart. You also have to bag your own groceries.The second thing you 'll notice is the size of the store and the smaller number of products they sell. ALDI 's tend to be smaller than traditional grocery stores; and whereas most larger stores can sometimes sell up to 10,000 different products, ALDIs tend to sell approx 1,200 to 2000 at most. The result is a targeted shopping experience that moves the customer through the store quickly.The third thing you 'll notice is they sell a lot of brand names that you probably aren 't familiar with. ALDI has a lot of in-house brands. This helps keep costs down, but don 't be fooled. Their in-house brands are often as good as IF NOT BETTER than many of the big brand names. You 'll notice they have some good brand-name items too, but their prices tend to be higher on those.The Redlands location is located in the Mountain Grove section of the Citrus Plaza complex, right next to a Nike Store. Parking is pretty good here, with ample Handicapped spots and a Chargepoint EV charger a small walk away.One of the things I really like about this particular location is the large windows in the front of the store let in a lot of natural light and give the store a larger, more airy feeling than the store actually is. Their produce is almost always fresh, and locally sourced in California. The staff is usually friendly and helpful. They even have a decent wine selection with some pretty highly-rated wines. There is one annoying thing, and I don 't think it 's limited to just this location. The limited and variable supply of items you might grow attached to. An example is their in-house brand of unsweetened iced tea that they had for the longest time in the half-gallon jugs, but they no longer carry as of a couple of years ago. This has happened to a few items we really like for some unknown reason. Come to expect the variable nature of some of their inventory.Aldi 's has become part of our shopping routine every two weeks. Even with inflation, their prices are more than fair, especially on staple items. I would say we source approximately 60% of our food items from ALDI 's every time we go shopping. Even though we live in Highland, the money we save is worth the trip one city over.If you 've never been to an ALDI before, stop by and browse around. I 'm sure you 'll find it interesting and it might just become one of your favorite stores. We love ALDIs in general, but this spot is easily our fave.

I love Aldi for the price and quality of the items. It it's my store of choice for all my home necessities.

Eggs on sale. Some are brown, organic, the store offers wide selection of items. And the staff is friendly and courteous.

I come here every 2 weeks for the unbeatable prices, great customer service experience, and for the cleanliness of the store.

I like Aldi's you can't get everything at Aldi's but the prices are lower than most grocery stores and Walmart- I give it 4 out of 5 stars because they don't have the biggest selection but the store is clean- Wednesday their ad comes out and that's when it gets really busy- get there when they open- if your interested in an advertised item-and don't forget to have a quarter to get the shopping cart out -you get your quarter back when you see return the cart