Allandale Village Shopping Center — Local services in Austin

HEB is where I usually go. The people in general really enjoy their work so you feel welcomed. And the bulk spices/herbs have won me over for their intensity - supplied fresh and good turnover. I get 20 or so and make my own various blends, so quality matters.

Lots of house brands that match or even exceed the major brands, for good prices; all those different canned tomatoes 35 cents! Decent German Riesling, and house brand peppermint & chamomile for next to nothing - mint to get going, chamomile to relax into sleep. The strong ginger beer got me started growing ginger, plan to make my own.

Burnet Road is a trip anyway, the proudly local one-off places keeping Austin's sense of place. You get to see Bark 'N Purr, Feats of Clay, old stone houses kept on as stores. Like a micro-vacation, sightseeing before the...

The Allendale shopping center is an innovation in inaccessiblility. Whatever transportation engineer designed the parking lot managed to ensure all four parking entrances are life-or-death white knuckle mergers into heavy traffic flows. The Burnet entrances frequently feature drivers attempting a 5-lane sweep into northbound traffic, a feat worthy of Dale Earnhardt himself. The two Allandale entrances turn onto eastbound Koenig traffic, a direction as depressing as it is unused. Instead drivers go for the merely risky left arrow for north Burnet, or the Interstellar-movie docking sequence difficulty level westbound 2222 turn.

More impressive is how this parking experience is not improved by non-peak hours. It's a marvel of engineering to have 1am parking just as bad as 1pm parking. No drivers...

I grocery shop at HEB regularly, so I am used to the traditional set up and organization of their stores.

I was working the other day and just happened to be near Burnet and Allendale and needed to get my grocery shopping out of the way and so I stopped here.

I liked the cleanliness of the store and the helpfulness of the staff and I had trouble finding some things.

But the design of the parking lot which was pretty crowded and near a busy intersection and especially the check out was a little bit difficult, that was really the only thing.

(Oh, and they did not carry my favorite smart pop white cheddar popcorn either, so I should totally take away another star for that, lol) But overall it was a good experience, I just wished it wasn't so crowded and difficult to exit when ready to...