Going Grocery Shopping at Dominick's on Roosevelt

The peeps at Dominick's recently reached out to us to look at a new coupon program they've recently launched called Just for U. For participating in the test, they gave us some gift cards (read at the bottom of the post to find out how you can get some). Ironically, one of our main Sloopin contributors loves coupons and enthusiastically agreed to test it out.

Anyway, here is a quick blurb they sent us about the program:

We have an exciting new promotion called Just for U that we are launching in Chicago and we want you to be among the first to try it out! Just for U enhances your Fresh Values Card rewards. It saves you additional money on products selected just for you based on your unique shopping history, allowing you to save on the items you want without having to sort through ads and clip paper coupons.

So with that in mind we embarked on a trip to their website (here) to try it out. Upon signing up we took a quick look around the site and sure enough our favorite things were discounted (which obviously was linked to our previous purchases on our Dominick's Fresh Values Card). We browsed, clicked on what we wanted, which in turn added the items to our card. Voila! We saved some dough. Pretty simple. We really don't have much more to say about the program.

Anyway, we live closer to Jewel on Wabash and Roosevelt, so that's usually our go to grocery store. However, it was fun to check out the Dominick's on Roosevelt and change up our grocery shopping routine. With that in mind, we thought we would provide some additional quick observations about differences (both positive and negative):

• Parking was a breeze at Dominick's. It might feel a little more 'suburban' than the Jewel experience or even the Whole Foods across the street, but it's much easier to get parking at Dominick's.
• The produce and meat area at Dominick's was pretty impressive. Not sure if it's that much better then Jewel, but we liked it!
• The other traditional aisles at Dominick's seemed dingy, dark and older. They still had all the stuff we wanted, but it didn't seem as nice as Jewel in this section of the grocery store.
• We bank with Chase and they have one, so that was convenient.
• There was some drunk dude sleeping on a bench outside of the store, but hey you get that everywhere in the Sloop (and city for that matter).
• Prices seemed comparable to Jewel, maybe a little cheaper, but pretty similar as far as we could tell.

So there you have it. Thanks to them for reaching out to us to give it a look. It's definitely an interesting concept and improvement on the coupon experience.

Finally, we do have some $25 gift cards left over. With that said, the first four people to buy a Sloopin t-shirt via eBay (link here) will get a $25 Dominick's gift card as well. What a deal! You buy a sweet Sloopin shirt for $21.90 and you get a $25 gift card...that means you come out on top (a positive $3.10).

(Hat Tip: Peeps at Dominick's)