In late March, 2001, Target closed down their store in Grand Forks, North Dakota and moved across the street to a new Super Target store. That's right, Lynn (my sister,) your beloved Tar-jay is now vacant (she wasted a couple of years there :-)

The store is the anchor of a new shopping centre called "Grand Forks Marketplace" (or some such nonsense) that includes Famous Footware, Best Buy, Old Navy, Gordman's, a hotel, restaurants and a bunch of other stuff. While the old store was an anchor in a typical enclosed mall, the new mall is one of those "outside malls," where the stores aren't connected to each other (and when it's 40 below in January, a lot of people will be questioning that decision.)


What is a Super Target?

I'll defer to my Mom for a moment...she's a font of all Target information and told me this. There are three types of Target stores. The first is a run of the mill Target, which features lower priced general merchandise. The stores have wide aisles, a fairly complete selection, and if you're more than five miles from one, either you winter in an igloo, or the Target bigwigs had their coffee cup covering your city on the map. If you go to a Target in East Undershirt, it's laid out the same as the one in Timbuktu -- clothes on one side, everything else on the other.

Next on the Target ladder is a "Greatland" store. These are designed differently than the base store, have somewhat wider selection, and put most of the merchandise out on the floor (minimizing "back room" warehouse space.) I've never been to a Greatland, so I'll just take her word for it.

Finally, you have a Super Target, while is a Greatland store with an Archer Farms grocery store tacked onto one side. When I was a fair haired youth running around Bloomington, Minnesota, we had a Target with a grocery store attached, but it wasn't the same thing and I don't believe that the grocery was run by Target.

There are similar stores elsewhere like WalMart Superstore or Fred Meijer. I have a friend who once described Meijer as "the only place on earth you can buy a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread and a set of snow tires at two in the morning." Sadly, our Super Target closes at midnight, so if you need snow tires at 2am, you'll have to look elsewhere.


The Target portion

If we separate out the parts, the general merchandise store is pretty much what the old one was. Aside from the structure and design, I don't see a great deal of difference between the two stores. There is a better selection of DVDs, there are 30+ check out lanes, but that's about it.

For the most part, you'll find merchandise of a general nature (hence the general merchandise term :-) In other words, you'll find a hammer, but not a reciprocating saw. You'll find a kicky green shirt, but no Versace scarves. Their selection of over the counter medicines and personal care items is very good.

Prices on general merchandise at Super Target don't seem to be any different than they were at the old store.


The Archer Farms Grocery

This is a fairly standard grocery store that abuts the Health and Beauty and Pets section. The store as a whole is set up so that, the farther you are away from the grocery store, the less likely you are to have come for those items ("Let's see, I need eggs and the Jurassic Park DVD." Well, actually, I have said that, but ignore me, I'm a weirdo.) There aren't walls or anything separating the groceries from everything else...wander too far down the bread aisle and you're into the vacuum cleaners.

The front of the grocery has produce, the bakery and deli; meats and refrigerated products run along the wall and the freezer section is in the back. All of the aisles in the grocery section are about two and a half carts wide and the products are generally sorted out fairly well.

The selection in the store is amazing. They've got a very wide assortment of almost everything, from a fairly complete collection of Thai food to Emeril's line of sauces. I went to get some marinade last night and found at least 15 different brands and flavours, which is quite different from the other grocery stores in town.

The quality of produce, baked goods and meat far exceeds any of the other stores here. For competition, we've got "Hugos", a local chain, "Super One" a northern Minnesota chain that kind of bled over into eastern North Dakota, and a "Super Value" (midwest chain) and none of them comes close to the quality of Archer Farms. I had Kiersten's birthday cake made at Archer Farms bakery last week and it was a wonderful cake, and ready when they said it would be.

The real downside of the store is the prices. For example, I like to have sweet rolls or muffins around for Kiersten's breakfast on the weekends. A four pack of muffins is four dollars. Donuts are fifty cents each. That makes me stop off at Super One on the way home from Super Target, because a buck a muffin is a lot to pay.

There are very few "off brands" and no generics in the store, so you're stuck buying brand name items at brand name prices for almost everything. I don't know where the meat is coming from, but aside from dairy products, there are few (if any) of the local products that I find in some of the other groceries.

While it may seem a bit odd to see one of those red Target "sale" placards on baked beans or chicken or something, it's really the only way to shop this store and stay on a budget. When you see something on sale, stock up on it.

The deli is not bad -- I love picking up a loaf of crusty garlic rye bread from the bakery and getting some freshly cut corned beef and Swiss cheese for a quick meal. I haven't eaten any of the "prepared foods" at the deli, but a coworker told me that the chicken was great. Rather odd for this town, there is a sushi chef who makes fresh sushi all day (and according to the paper, it's been selling very well.)

This is a very labour intensive store. Because of the wide selection of products, there isn't a vast quantity of anything out on the floor, but they have a lot of people restocking, so I've only seen them "out" of something once or twice. There is always at least one person in the produce section fiddling around with the vegetables.

An interesting observation was something I encountered yesterday. There is one glaring omission at the store -- butter in tubs...they've got margarine in tubs and butter in sticks, but no butter in tubs, which is the only "spread" I buy. So I asked some guy in the meat department who I could talk to about getting a product added (didn't say what it was.)

His response was something along the lines of "well, we're told by the company what we can stock, but just a second and I'll get someone." A few minutes later, one of the managers came over and when I told him what I wanted, he said something to the effect that "Oh, yeah, that seems pretty obvious. What's the brand and I'll see if our distributor has it."

My read from that was that, if you ask for something bizarre, they'll say that "Target doesn't let us carry it," but if you require something normal, they'll try and add it. So long as they add my butter, I don't care, but if you want teriyaki buffalo meat patties, you might be out of luck.

[Update] Well, it's been a month, and they haven't added my butter. I guess it's too weird for them.


Extras

In addition to the grocery store, there is a Starbucks coffee shop, a Target cafe and an eyeglasses store. Apparently they're planning on adding a bank, but until then you'll have to make do with an "ETrade / ATM" kiosk.

They have those motorized shopping carts for the disabled and loads and loads of employees all over the place that will help you find stuff. They also have at least 350,000 orange Target carts in the store and scattered around the parking lot.

Although my Mom claims that Super Target has grocery baggers on the weekends, I've never seen them. The cashier bags your stuff and you're given the task of putting it back in your cart. They do seem to keep the lines down, but I have seen an occasional shortage of check outs and waited a bit longer than normal to get out of there. There is a seemingly endless line of checkouts, but they generally open four to five at the grocery end, one or two in the middle and two at the far end. It doesn't matter where you're checking out -- the guy down by the tvs knows what to punch in to weigh your potatoes.


What's bad about this concept

I'm an impulse grocery shopper. I can't tell you the number of times I've gone to Super One to get milk and walked out with $50 of stuff. That becomes a problem of epic proportions at Super Target. Needed bread, bought a tv. Needed charcoal, bought a grill. My worst experience was when I went there to buy hot chocolate ($3) and walked out having spent $130. True story. I'm so pathetic.

It's also kind of bad from an "order of buying" standpoint. If you load up your groceries and then remember that you had to buy pants or a screwdriver or something, you have to wander over to the other part of the store as your milk goes bad and the ice cream dribbles. If you look around the freezer section, you'll find insulated bags to store frozen stuff in as you waste money elsewhere (at the very least, the bags will contain the spills somewhat.)


Conclusion

I love the quality and selection at Super Target. For those two aspects, it's easily the best store in town. Price-wise, I'm not a big fan. My Mom claims that they're as cheap or cheaper than other stores, but I've not seen that here. Between the extra nickel here and there and the fact that they don't carry many off-brands and generics, you will definitely pay more at Super Target.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to run off and pick up bread, eggs and a new vacuum cleaner.



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