While I posted on the other thread about when the Crest is to open, I thought I'd start this thread for people to comment as they visit the new store.

We went to the pre-opening celebration today. Store is a "WOW" on the inside. So many who were attending the pre-opening expressed a wish to be able to shop, but we were limited to "looking" only.

Cox Communications & Subway are the only two shops identified as going in on the north side of the store at this point, although there was speculation that a nail salon and/or a hair salon were also going in there.

As you visit the store, share your comments!

Open on the 24th? Is that right? Can't wait!

opens the 23rd @ 10am. -M

Want to know something very strange? There is no "Grand Opening" sale for all of the stores. Delayed? Dunno. Give it one more week to see what happens.

Bring it on! Too bad I have to work and miss all the Grand Opening fun. Only been watching them build the place on a daily basis as I drive by it, then realize everyone ELSE is gonna get to enjoy the open. (whine mode off).

Seriously, its awesome that we have a new grocery option in S. OKC! I think I may have a portion of my paycheck just direct-deposited there :)

Went in about half an hour ago on my way home. WOW. That's all I can say.

Post pics people!!

Bring it on! Too bad I have to work and miss all the Grand Opening fun. Only been watching them build the place on a daily basis as I drive by it, then realize everyone ELSE is gonna get to enjoy the open. (whine mode off).

Seriously, its awesome that we have a new grocery option in S. OKC! I think I may have a portion of my paycheck just direct-deposited there :)

Darn work, I'd rather be shopping too! Too bad you guys don't have too many days off, I wish a certain coworker of yours could spend more vacation days ;-) (another whine for another day...)

I hope that it doesn't just look good, but that they have a diverse and top-quality product offering. Crest seems to be highly variable with it, very neighborhood dependent, which is why I'm assuming they'll get it right in this part of town ;-) Can't wait to check it out!

We went back this morning about 10:40; it was beyond crowded! So we left and went back after lunch. The crowd had thinned--there actually were some empty parking spots in the lot!

As for the selections, we are very impressed; quantity and quality of brands; only found three items that I'm used to buying that they don't carry, which isn't bad at all.

As for prices, they are spot on in being competitive with Walmart, but the main difference is that Crest really HAS the items in stock on the shelves! :congrats:

SO nice to have enough checkers working--although that was the only place where we had a rather long wait.

Beautiful store!!!!

The store is really nice. It's large, and the aisles are very wide. The selection is great, but not exceptional. Given that they have so much space, we expected to see more speciality products that couldn't be find in other stores. We also hoped that they would have more fresh foods, but it looks like we'll have to wait for Whole Foods. This store reminded me of the nicer Albertson's stores we had before Homeland took them over, but we still need better options.

I wish Crest would build one of the nicer stores in NW OKC. We do have a Crest on NW 23rd, and then another one on Rockwell, but they are smaller stores.

How are the prices?
I know Walmart prices tend to be true to all stores (give or take a lil) while homelands vary greatly depending on the neighborhood.
Ive only sever shopped one Crest (the eastern store in Moore) so I don't know if it varies depending on location. Given its "rich" zip code I was concerned the prices would be much higher.

Firefly, this is years ago so it may have changed but when Crest opened the store in North Edmond, their prices were definitely higher than the main Crest over in Midwest City. From what I saw, the Crest on 23rd & Meridian is higher than the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market at 23rd & MacArthur.

Hope Crest and everyone else puts Homeland out of business.

Hope Crest and everyone else puts Homeland out of business.

lol why the hate for homeland?

Wow. The store looked great.

How are the prices?
I know Walmart prices tend to be true to all stores (give or take a lil) while homelands vary greatly depending on the neighborhood.
Ive only sever shopped one Crest (the eastern store in Moore) so I don't know if it varies depending on location. Given its "rich" zip code I was concerned the prices would be much higher.

We comparison shopped a number of items with which we were totally familiar w/Walmart Super Center & Neighborhood Walmart market prices. Neighborhood Walmart Market is almost always higher than a super center, but it was interesting about Crest. Example: one item was .29 [Parkay sticks] higher than the Neighborhood store, but on Windex [clear], Crest was .29 lower than the Super Center. So...looks like it rather balances out overall. One difference: Crest had both items in stock; Neighborhood Walmart had been out of the Parkay when I went to buy. Hmm.

Will we continue to shop Walmart Super Center? Yes. Crest doesn't carry all the items we like to buy; we just won't go to the Super Center as often now.

Since we've never shopped other Crest stores, I cannot address the comparison, but one of our neighbors does shop the eastern Moore location and said the new Crest prices are the same on the items she checked.

Crest is generally cheapest on the overall purchases. Walmart may have something lower than Crest, but Crest have more products lower than Walmart. Prices go up and down. Crest change prices more frequently than Walmart.

Right now, Homeland have the Home Pride bread on sale for $1.19 while Crest have it on sale for $0.99. The sales rotate on all the products weekly. Still, Crest is the winner when it comes to meat quality and always beat Walmart. I don't know about meat qualty for Homeland.

Sure, with weekly sales, prices go up and down. Matter if it is on sale when you are looking to buy. Knowing that, I try to wait until there is a really good sale on something and then buy enough of it to last until the next sale rotation.

Told this story before but took Homeland's BOGO ad to Crest and on every item but one that Crest carried, Crest's regular price was cheaper than Homeland's BOGO price. The one item was a penny cheaper.

This was years ago and maybe it has changed, but you avoided meat and produce at Crest as things were often close to going bad. Have to watch that at Buy for Less too. Have never had that problem with Wal-Mart or even Homeland.

Produce at Crest is fantastic. Bananas for example, is always so yellow, turning brown at walmart while its fresh green turning yellow at Crest.

I'm always sad by the quality of produce at any store in town except Target or Sam's.

Homeland RAISES the price before a BOGO sale.

My Hate for Homeland? I Don't hate, I dislike or don't respect is all. I worked for a company that was bought out by them (our Homelands are actually H.A.C. owned by A.W G. in Oklahoma, who bought our Oklahoma Homelands in 2002), they treat their people horribly. I've moved on. Homeland is just so awful in more ways than one. Oh and H.A.C. was a name created by AWG when they bought the Homelands and stands for Homeland Aquisition Company . A.W.G. stands for Associated Wholesale Grocer.

I have no association with Homeland whatsoever other than as a shopper. My wife and I just really felt like Albertson's did a much better job keeping the stores clean. At Albertson's the bakery and deli departments were also much better. Things went down hill once Homeland took over.

The main reason I choose crest over wal-mart, regardless or price, is because I never have to stand in line for 20 minutes, and the stores are much cleaner.

Things went down hill once Homeland took over.

Amen.

The main reason I choose crest over wal-mart, regardless or price, is because I never have to stand in line for 20 minutes, and the stores are much cleaner.

And you're like me you don't want to use the self check counters. Because how the hell do you imput a price on an item without a bar code, such as produce without looking like a clueless idiot?

And you're like me you don't want to use the self check counters. Because how the hell do you imput a price on an item without a bar code, such as produce without looking like a clueless idiot?

You go through that ridiculous catalog with the pictures that always seem to have a different price than what you saw on the aisles.

And then the machine says there's weight on the baggage area that's not supposed to be there and the whole session pauses so one of the workers can come over and check to see if you've stolen something.

Well I'm just torn as to what my final opinion is....

store looks nicer. Its BIG (but with the crowds and huge shopping carts they give you, the aisles felt cramped today)...

produce selection is a definite improvement, better than all the other Crests I've been to (they have bulk mushrooms!)...

cheese section is a plus for Crest, but Homeland's is better, seemed that Crest bought 10 varieties of cheddar type cheeses, they have some nice stuff, but I didn't see too especially many unique offerings (plus I like that Homeland has an olive bar, wish Crest did)...

they need more prepared foods outside of the deli counter, sushi looked pretty good though...

meat is a great price, decent selection, respectable seafood department...

bakery seems similar to Homeland...

large aisles, true, but true to Crest they seem to have alot of the same thing...

have cased doors for all of the refrigeratables was odd, but I assume that might save on energy costs, BUT I hope they can maintain them. Not sure I'm a fan of the appearance however, hard to see things. personal sidegripe: why are low fat cheeses still so pricey?!?

Overall, its a nice store, surely the nicest Crest I've seen, and hopefully the crazy crowds will die down so its more pleasant to shop there, but...we still need a true upscale full grocery market. Can't wait for Whole Foods!

Homeland RAISES the price before a BOGO sale.

My Hate for Homeland? I Don't hate, I dislike or don't respect is all. I worked for a company that was bought out by them (our Homelands are actually H.A.C. owned by A.W G. in Oklahoma, who bought our Oklahoma Homelands in 2002), they treat their people horribly. I've moved on. Homeland is just so awful in more ways than one. Oh and H.A.C. was a name created by AWG when they bought the Homelands and stands for Homeland Aquisition Company . A.W.G. stands for Associated Wholesale Grocer.


i used to work at awg's massive warehouse out on council. i hated it, lol.
i always found it funny the sometimes huge price differences in stores from crest to buy 4 less when their product comes from the same location.

My wife and I went this afternoon. Although the story was rather crowed, it didn't feel crowded ... seemed to be more than ample room to navigate. The high ceiling was good ... made it possible to see signs posted high in the back part of the building from the front of the story to the back. On arrival, we were given a map which showed both general layout and detail for individual isles.

As others have mentioned, the shopping carts are quite large.

My wife feeds her darned cat quite well ... in addition to an ever present supply of dry food, she gives her 2 (more if the cat is finicky and turns up her nose at the plate) cans of Fancy Feast every day. The price we pay at the Homeland store at 18th & Classen is around 87 cents a can ... when moved to do so, we sometimes shop at the Walmart neighborhood grocery on NW 23rd and the food costs less there, but not nearly as low as Crest's price

At Crest, these same cans were 45 cents each ... a difference of 42 cents. The annual savings would be $306.60 I think she picked up about 30 cans.

We also regularly purchase Starbucks breakfast blend whole bean coffee. At Homeland, we pay over $9 for a bag ... at Crest it was a little over $7 ... but you can get a larger bag of the same coffee at Target for around $7.50. Those were the price comparisons that I noticed.

The produce all looked fresh and good and they had the kind of yellow onions I like (Texas ... some 4000 series #) and they looked great. The special area of the meat department had some beautiful cuts of US Prime as well as US Choice. The fish area had some very pretty uncooked and beheaded large shimp that I noticed. The sushi bar looked nice but I'm not a sushi fan. We picked up a copy of loaves of fresh baked bread ... sour dough for wife and uncut white bread for me.

Checkout was fast, plenty of cashiers on duty. I didn't count, but the number was over 10. They use recyclable paper sacks, no plastic. We were surprised, however, that they didn't have those cloth carry bags that other stores use (for a price) available.

Overall, I'd say that it is probably the nicest grocery that I've been in Oklahoma City ... very nice, great prices ... but I don't think it measures up to a comparably sized H.E.B. in Texas.

I have no trouble working the self-checkout with produce. (Organic bananas, for instance, are 94011; the code number is in a teensy label right on the peel. Bought some today, in fact.)

The best part about Crest is that an Okie company can compete with Wal-Mart, and it's nice to get past the walmartization of OKC.

Doug,

That is a huge difference on the cat food. Could you tell if that was a Grand Opening sale price or the regular price (either way, stock up while it is cheap!)

I would certainly hope the produce and meat was fresh (if it wasn't fresh on Opening, it certainly wouldn't be a good sign...LOL)

Have a great weekend!

Larry, don't know about whether special pricing was going on. My wife and I wondered the same thing.

Those bags are under the registers. Request them.

Those are normal prices on the cans. They're that cheap every day. Not a special sale.

Those bags are under the registers. Request them.

Those are normal prices on the cans. They're that cheap every day. Not a special sale.
Good to hear, Thunder.

BTW, best way for northsiders to get there is probably to use I-44 south to SW 104th exit and drive east until almost reaching May Ave.

Way out of my way, but I decided to check it out this weekend to see what all the buzz is about. I have to say, this may be the nicest grocery store currently in the OKC metro. It really reminded me of the upscale grocers present in other states. Not quite as good a selection as HEB Marketplace but actually really close.

I was most impressed by the quality of the fruits and vegetables. One thing that drives me crazy about Oklahoma grocers is that often times if you look closely the lettuce they are selling is wilted, grapes are slightly pruny, strawberries look a bit off and so forth. There was none of that at the Crest... everything was absolutely fresh.

Also I was really surprised at how cheap the prices were considering everything.

We went this morning and were favorably impressed. The rows were wide and the layout made sense. Lots of checkers but I don't expect that to last. :LolLolLol We went at 9:00 am hoping that all the good people of OKC would all be in church so we could shop without being trampled. Useless attempt since the "bad" people in OKC were shopping and seemed to be lost and not paying attention to where they were going, who was near them or if they were blocking a lane. It wasn't all that crowded, compared to opening day, but it still felt like we were in a pinball game.

I noticed a wine/liquor store across the street (on May) and that was nice so people can swing by when they go to the grocery store. I didn't realize it was a 24 hour store and that made me happy because I might be able to avoid some of the hordes.

People who use those hummer wheelchair carts should be required to have handicapped stickers, swear to god. Many just run over people and seem oblivious to other shoppers. And let me hasten to say that after my mother became very ill with cancer, I came to understand that plenty of people can't walk even if they aren't lame and don't look sick. I get it. I know it is important that those folks have the option to shop and that it is often good for their health and overall wellbeing. I really do get it.

But there are plenty of clearly hearty people not missing any meals who use those things because they don't want to walk and they are a pain in the butt. Unless genuinely lame, for god's sake, the walk would be good for them. Rant over. I know expecting them to be limited to the actually handicapped or ill is a pipe dream.

Lots of good parking with plenty of places to bring back your carts so there is no excuse to abandon them in the parking lot to roll around and be a hazard. The carts, btw, are enormous. Almost too big. They looked more like topless tiger cages than shopping carts.

I'd give the store an A+ even though I couldn't find any Frosty Paws for my girls.

The carts, btw, are enormous. Almost too big. They looked more like topless tiger cages than shopping carts.


I'm sure the cart size is designed to make people buy more. The cart doesn't look very full after a while so they keep shopping. That's just like when you go to an "all you can eat" buffet. They use small plates so you won't get so much.

I haven't seen the carts in the new store, but I am sure they are trying to ease down the amount of people using two carts or more. I'm fed up with idiots having 2 to 4 full carts!

I'm fed up with idiots having 2 to 4 full carts!

Idiots with 2 to 4 full carts = JOB Security for you

Idiots with 2 to 4 full carts = JOB Security for you

I agree, why be upset because someone has more than 1 cart.

I went into the new store and all I can say is that the store is EXCEPTIONAL! The whole store have truly surpassed all expectations and this is definitely an upscale store. Keep in mind, their business strategy is not quite like Whole Foods, because of the branded Discount advertisement that the company has up front. Just go into that store, you'll see how amazing it is. I am positive that Whole Foods interior designs can not come any close to this. The registers is impressive with overhead signs and lighted register numbers. It's a whole new trend that completely wash away those register numbers held by poles. The bakery is huge and the kitchen is hugely exposed for customers to watch. I can't describe it, so you'll just have to go there. I did noticed that lunch meat was enclosed behind glass doors. Interesting. The aisles is the widest ever on record. No other existing stores have aisles as wide as this new Crest store.

One failure grade that I have to give is the use of metal/steel carts. I feel with the "Fresh" theme and the color Green, that they should have ordered plastic green carts instead. Not just a plain box shape, but a design with a bit of curve. That is the only failure grade that I can think of for this entire store.

If only there weren't any "idiots" that shopped at Crest. I'm sure Crest foods would love to hear their employees call customers idiots. Are you a sacker?

Thunder, thanks for a grocery store man's take on it!

I like the new store a lot. I will be shopping there from now on, living just south of sw 134th, location is great. One minor negative, coming home from picking up the wife at the airport Monday night, about midnight, only 2 checkout lanes open. I had 1 item as did several others, but, we had to wait for people with full carts. The self-checks were shut down. I know stopping at midnight was not ideal, but, why do stores shut down the self-checks late at night? I was very relieved to see the new Crest had self-check lanes. I use them religiously.

Where is the pictures?

And you're like me you don't want to use the self check counters. Because how the hell do you imput a price on an item without a bar code, such as produce without looking like a clueless idiot?

If you wanna have fun, put a watermelon on the scale and input the code for "radish."

Anybody take any pictures?

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b274/soonerbrat/photo.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b274/soonerbrat/photo.jpg

All you can see are shopping carts. And both that woman and the man further back look like they've spent too much time at the grocery store. LOL

We didn't want pictures of shoppers, we wanted pictures of the store.. lol

I also want to note about the meat. They look red on the shelves, but when you pick them up, they quickly turn brown. It is the awful lighting in the store. The small store, they stay red from the shelves to the registers. So... Don't freak out when you see brown meat in your cart. It'll turn red again at home when you take them out of the sack.

I also want to note about the meat. They look red on the shelves, but when you pick them up, they quickly turn brown. It is the awful lighting in the store. The small store, they stay red from the shelves to the registers. So... Don't freak out when you see brown meat in your cart. It'll turn red again at home when you take them out of the sack.

They keep the south end of the store really dark over by the freezer sections.

went to the new crest this morning.. Very nice fruit and veggie selection, a lot of unique veggies that are not offered at the other crests or at walmarts.. The bakery area made me remember my youth ( my mom worked for rainbo bakery and came home smelling like fresh baked bread), the smell of fresh baked bread at this place is great. I think its funny that hotpockets have there own freezer section thats labeled.. very wide isles, i like it a lot

Take it from someone with 6 kids on a tight budget, Their prices are comparable with their other stores. We usually only shop at crest on 12th st in Moore, Now since they built this new one they are about the same distance from us so we chose to go here last week. We were very impressed. Little overwhelming at 1st with all of the inventory, But everything was stocked almost identical to their other stores which made it very easy to find our way around. Working for a meat co. I really found their meat selection pretty impressive, Especially when compared to their store on 12th.

We were a little worried about the prices going up because of the area, But that did not seem to be the case...Thus far. But you also have to realize rich folks are rich for a reason and will drive a little further to save money if they have too. The Homeland over on Penn near there is just ridiculous on prices....not to mention the dumb little card you have to have in order to take advantage of a sale.

In the end, Crest rules the roost.

Thunder, just because meat is red does not mean anything about it's freshness, just gives the perception of freshness. Most supermarkets dye their meat red.

http://www.reallynatural.com/archives/general-news/dont_be_fooled_into_buying_red.php

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/affecting-consumer-buying-with-red-meat-cosmetics-the-fresh-meat-lie

I went into the new store and all I can say is that the store is EXCEPTIONAL! The whole store have truly surpassed all expectations and this is definitely an upscale store. Keep in mind, their business strategy is not quite like Whole Foods, because of the branded Discount advertisement that the company has up front. Just go into that store, you'll see how amazing it is. I am positive that Whole Foods interior designs can not come any close to this. The registers is impressive with overhead signs and lighted register numbers. It's a whole new trend that completely wash away those register numbers held by poles. The bakery is huge and the kitchen is hugely exposed for customers to watch. I can't describe it, so you'll just have to go there. I did noticed that lunch meat was enclosed behind glass doors. Interesting. The aisles is the widest ever on record. No other existing stores have aisles as wide as this new Crest store.

One failure grade that I have to give is the use of metal/steel carts. I feel with the "Fresh" theme and the color Green, that they should have ordered plastic green carts instead. Not just a plain box shape, but a design with a bit of curve. That is the only failure grade that I can think of for this entire store.

Thunder have you ever even been to a Whole Foods? Comparing it to Crest is laughable.