ALDI — Local services in Charlotte

I had an unprofessional and rude interaction with one of the cashiers last night. I came in to pick up groceries for the holiday coming up and my family has been having a tough time as are others and so when it came to paying, my card declined twice and the cashier was very rude about the situation. The first time she said “it’s declined” with some attitude and loud enough for the people behind me to hear. Then the second time she said “declined again. I need to move your stuff to the side to keep my line moving and you can just come back later” again with a lot of attitude and loud enough for the people behind me in line to ask if I was okay. It’s already embarrassing enough to have my card declined, but even more embarrassing to have it handled so poorly by the cashier. I work in retail as well and there’s so many better ways to say someone’s card has declined such as “I’m sorry, the machine isn’t liking this card” or “it’s not going through on my side, did you have another card to try by chance?” Etc. or at the very least she could have been more discreet about it and have some compassion. I’m sure I’m not the first nor will I be the last to have my card declined and it would just be nice to not have to deal with a rude cashier to make the...

Being vegan, it’s important to me that the stores I frequent have a lot of fresh produce (they do!) and vegan options for things to replace milk, sour cream, yogurt (they do NOT!). But they DO have a lot of frozen vegan “meat” substitutions that are VERY good and just as well-priced as the other items in the store. The prices here are really good overall. Many refrigerated items are close to expiration in my experience. This makes me stick to the fresh produce and the frozen and canned items for the most part. Things I don’t like include having to keep a quarter in the car to be able to rent a shopping cart. They give you your quarter back, but I never have cash of any sort, so I don’t get a shopping cart. You also have to bring your own bags (or pay for them at checkout). I actually love this concept and do it anyways, so I just shop into my bags and then load my groceries on the belt to be scanned, then reload them into my bags to leave the store. Cart-quarter problem solved. I’d give them 5 stars if I could use a shopping cart for free/not need a quarter to borrow one AND IF they got more of the vegan options I’ve seen at other Aldi locations around...

You need to bring a quarter to unlock your shopping cart (which you will get back when you return it). You need to bring your own reusable bags and you're still going to be bagging them yourself.

I find the store to have excellent produce, dairy, milk and meat. We picked up two amazing steaks for $5 each that were as good as a $15 steak at the other supermarket chain.

They don't have everything. You're still going to need to go to Publix or Harris Teeter to fill in for some of the stuff that they just don't sell at Aldi. That's okay because your full cart of stuff here is going to be way less expensive than what you're buying at the other stores.

Aldi does now accept credit cards and that's a huge plus. I now get my points when I shop. Woo...