The Best Supermarkets in America

A lengthy period of evolution in American food culture has transformed supermarkets, and often for the better. As Americans become increasingly interested in eating well, the country has better access to higher quality food than at any other time in recent memory.

We love the following American supermarkets for their value and the quality of their products, and we can’t imagine grocery shopping without them. Read on for the best supermarkets in America.

Yeji Kim

1. H-E-B

Even Texans already deeply loyal to the hometown favorite found new ways to fall in love with the nation’s best supermarket chain, which began back in 1905 as Mrs. Florence Butt’s general store, up in the Hill Country.

What was already good — the affordable prices on a wide range of high-quality own-brand products, the in-store tortillerias, the excellent curbside pickup program — has gotten even better. There are those who think they are shopping at the best supermarkets in the country, and then there are the H-E-B shoppers who know this for a fact.

2. Wegmans

Name a better large-format grocery store chain on the Eastern Seaboard, we’ll wait, and rather comfortably, thanks. From the value-minded house brand to a dizzying array of baked goods and prepared foods, and don’t forget those ridiculously good subs, Wegmans doesn’t seem to lose many shoppers over time, rather adding only more to the fold.

In recent years, this Western New York institution has gone wide, opening up shop everywhere from suburban Boston to North Carolina.

Courtesy of Wegmans

There are now more than 100 Wegmans stores, including one very popular New York City location —fans would insist there’s room for at least 100 more, and they’re not wrong.

3. Hy-Vee

Hy-Vee is the pride of Des Moines, with its exceedingly popular homestyle prepared meals (the meatloaf might be better than Mom’s, just saying) and robust community involvement. Much like H-E-B in Texas, the employee-owned Hy-Vee just seemed like it was there, in any way it possibly could be, for the communities they serve; this will have come as no great surprise to the Midwesterners lucky enough to shop there on a regular basis.

4. New Seasons

Portland’s favorite hometown supermarket chain is not only a kick-ass grocery store stocked with high-quality and often organic product, but it’s also something of a gathering place for each community it serves. While still primarily a Portland area thing (and how), there are now two equally excellent stores elsewhere — one in suburban Seattle, and another in San Jose.

5. Market Basket

We can’t imagine a future in which the New England-based Market Basket isn’t wholly essential, both to its local customer base and the streams of summer people, who, for example, not that we’d know anything about this, pay too much for their Cape Cod rentals and then roll up on the Bourne store after sitting in so much bridge traffic, filling up what room is left in the car with unbelievably affordable groceries.

6. Lidl

We’re not sure we could love this fast-spreading European import even the slightest bit more (you’ve never had a better cheap chain supermarket croissant in this country, promise). What’s so great about a store filled to the brim with mostly unrecognizable brands? Just ask the home cooks across the Atlantic that rely on them for their low-cost, often high-quality product; not to be impolite, but if it’s good enough for French home cooks, it’s good enough for you.

© Martin Divisek/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Right now, interested shoppers can find the stores everywhere from Northern New Jersey into Georgia. With any luck, they’ll eventually end up nationwide, and then stay that way.

7. Winco Foods

Known for one of the largest, most reasonably-priced bulk aisles in the business, Winco’s stores are brimming over with affordable store-brand goods. The chain has been a lifesaver for cash-strapped shoppers on the West Coast, faced in recent years with an exorbitant rise in the cost of living. A true friend in tight times, or anytime.

8. Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s is one-of-a-kind — and often tremendously accessible, to boot, offering great product, lots of it organic and all-natural, for sometimes drastically less than you’d pay elsewhere.

9. Publix

When loyal shoppers talk to you about this employee-owned Southeast favorite — if you went to Florida and didn’t stop at Publix, were you even there? — one of the first things that will come up, invariably, are the subs from the deli counter. Its famous sandwiches, including the Havana Bolds and the Chicken Cordon Bleus, have our hearts forever.

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Publix is so much more than one of the region’s favorite places for a cheap and quality (Boar’s Head) sub, it is also well-loved (like so many on this list) for its rather superb store brand.

10. Costco

Plenty of shoppers may have had trouble seeing the point before, but if there was ever a time where the four-pack of mustard made sense, it was 2020. America’s finest warehouse club was already known for being a great place to work, and during the pandemic, it proved to be a safe place to work, too, thanks to measures that included masks required for all members, and a restriction on the number of people admitted along with members. Throughout it all, rather importantly, the food court hot dogged on.