El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company

Reviews 9

JK

JKay GreenStarsProject

Well, I quite liked this place! (5/5 green stars) I can definitely see how business owners become frustrated (enraged, even) by certain online reviews. El Cerrito Natural Grocery seems to receive more than its fair share of unreasonably whingey reviews. Wah, there are nuts in some pastries! Wah, there’s gluten in the thing I bought without looking at the ingredients list! Wah, regular parkers park in the electric car spot! If there’s a regular car parked at the charging station you would think it’s more reasonable to blame that driver rather than give the store one star. Anyhoo, I dropped in for just a coffee and pastry and found it to be a fairly pleasant spot to do some writing – there’s no WiFi by the way. Good mix of people inside, having coffee, lunch or a beer. It’s not a place that I would have ever considered coming for a beer but they have an interesting selection in their fridge and will provide glasses. My latte was better than I had expected – the foam was dense, almost like a flat white, and considering that they use organic milk it was not expensive at $3.25 for a medium. Similarly, my hot cross bun was $2 even though it was made from organic ingredients. So I’m not sure that the complaints about prices are warranted. Wah! I’m giving them 5/5 “green stars” for social and environmental impact, based on these reasons: • The Natural Grocery Co. uses 100% green power and does a good job at waste minimization. • They are employee-owned and if you look them up on Glassdoor it looks like employees are pretty happy. E.g., they are offered good health benefits after working there for 60 days and after 5 years they get stock in their company. • They use local organic butter, milk, cream and eggs in their bakery. • Their mission is to use local, organic / sustainable ingredients and they have partnerships with the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA) and FishWise, amongst others. • Their beer selection is heavily represented by local brewers such as Fort Point and the East Brother Beer Co. • Their coffee is from Equal Exchange, pioneers of the direct trade movement and a great cooperative company. The majority of their coffee is shade-grown and some is certified organic. Interested in writing green star reviews? If so, contact me! (greenstarsproject)

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A Private User

The Natural Grocery Company is awesome. Their foods are always guaranteed fresh, and if you find even the tiniest blemish or dent ( not that I bother), they will give you a full refund! I go to this place instead of Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Those places are fine, but I like helping out small businesses like this. Those two giants are taking over the entire organic food/product market. This place has the nice, small family company feel. Its hard to describe, but you just get the feel that the store is no so much about business, but about natural goods. You can tell from their employees that they are treated pretty well. Like Berkeley Brett, Ive shopped there for years, and Ive seen the same cashiers! At a local Trader Joes, I swear theres a new middle aged woman or teenager every time I walk in. They always have fresh produce and natural products from supplements to facial cleansers, as mentioned on google or yahoo; but I have to add their fresh meat market. Try their sun dried tomato chicken sausages...to die for! Just adventure to this store one day...youll become a lifetime customer.

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AN

Andre Ambrus

Train employees better. In the past almost decade only one [1] employee asked me if I needed help. Otherwise its mostly dodging them when they run through the store. And please clean this store. Floors are dirty, baskets are hopeless. You can go through a dozen baskets and not find a clean one. Meat counter is constructed in a way that customers cant see whats happening to their products after they are weighed. And I have bought items that went straight to trash. Make it more transparent. Cashiers often just stare instead of greeting you. I get the neighborhood store "vibe" but prices are high and service should match such high prices. (Many items are unbelievably high when compared to WH, Sprouts or Target.) Selection is otherwise OK for such a small place. Its frustrating that even talking to managers makes no difference. Feels like dealing with USPS.

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HA

Haku A

Ive been shopping here for over 20 years and very much appreciate their dedication to being as organic, sustainable, pasture raised, etc. oriented as they can. As far as I know they continually screen their products to make sure they are up to a certain standard of environmental & social integrity (and of course the quality of the product by itself). The people are generally friendly and the manager seems like a good guy. The prices are high for the average shopper, but they arent any higher than a place like wholefoods and are actually cheaper sometimes. Also, I believe the integrity of this company is more intact than wholefoods from what Ive heard here and there. I definitely recommend this grocery store.

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henning enkman

Just a heads up on this store. They freeze most (likely all) of their breads and let them thaw on the shelves. So the expiration date on them makes little sense. I have bought breads here (far more expensive than WH, and Target also carries) them that were moldy and about $2 more than above other stores. Imagine taking out your frozen bread from the freezer and then placing them on shelves without refrigeration. Get the picture? Annex: food is just OK. I do like their pizza but often there is a line and never ever another employee comes to help the one who is struggling to fill others. So people just leave. I get the "support local" stuff but "local" still needs to meet service and quality standards.

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BR

Brett Richardson

I typically stop by this store at least twice a week. Sometimes I dont really need anything, I just like to "soak up" the atmosphere! The people who work here are generally polite and friendly. The selection of products is excellent. The parking is also good (about as good as it can be in the Bay Area.) I prefer it to Trader Joes and Whole Foods, (though each of those stores has its merits, too.) I am also happy to see that there is not a high turnover rate among the employees -- you see the same (delightful) faces each time you visit, some of whom have worked at the store for years. (I take it as a good sign when a business like this can keep its employees.) I heartily recommend this store.

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Fonky Rob

It seems like the prices were really high, but I was glad to find a health food store that hasnt been shut down yet. The produce seemed a little less than fresh. There were knowledgeable people who knew about what foods were good for certain health conditions, like the old days. I guess my biggest problem was the fact that it cost me $50 for a sack of vegetables, some tea and some walnuts. I would go there again, but I couldnt recommend it to someone on a low budget who needed to good organic food.

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ST

Steven Dorst

El Cerrito Natural is the smallest footprint complete food store Ive ever experienced. They have a wide array of product, a butcher, bulk foods, and most everything else youd expect at far larger stores (but no pharmacy). I withheld one star for two reasons: Too much space devoted to "supplements" of dubious nutritional value (which seems to be a hallmark of "Natural" food stores) and high prices.

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KA

Karen Keeley

Theres a Whole Foods closer to me, but I go to El Cerrito instead because I like the large selection of organic produce. Everything is organic, no need to check the labels. This small store has a big variety of other items, too. Their bakery next door is exceptionally good for a grocery store bakery. The coffee toffee cake is divine.

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