Bashas’

Nice covered parking, not swamped with people, good bakery, nice liquor dept., meat dept. small but ok for selections, and produce selections pretty good. Bottle & can soda doesn’t seem to be stock very well by the soda companies. Zeke the manager is very helpful & polite! Like the sales but wish they were for more than just buying one item only on sale.

This review is for the Bashas’ grocery store located at 21044 N John Wayne Parkway in Maricopa, Arizona. My review of this location is mostly favorable, so I’ll start with the bad and then list the good.
The Bad: My first shopping experience with Bashas was about 35 years ago. Another store was closer to where I lived, so I always bought groceries at the closer store. I was given a gift certificate for Bashas’, so I shopped there for the first time to use that gift certificate. I found that the groceries I bought were about 30% more expensive than I was used to paying at the closer store, so I really had no reason to return to Bashas’ for all these years.
The Good: When I started buying groceries in Maricopa, there were two national chain stores and Bashas’ which is an Arizona chain. Given that years earlier, my only experience with Bashas’ showed me that they were much more expensive than the other chains, I never shopped there. Even today, I usually shop at the National Chain store across the street, however, a few years ago, the store across the street was very, very busy just before a holiday. I had braved the crowd and didn’t like the experience. When I got home, I realized that I forgot to buy tomatoes. I really didn’t want to go back to deal with the overcrowded store just for tomatoes, so I went to Bashas’. It was easy to find parking and when I walked inside, to my amazement, there were very few customers inside. Walking around was easy and I bought some tomatoes quickly and was on my way. Given how overcrowded the other store was, this was quite a relief, and the tomatoes were roughly the same price as the other store. While I still do most of my shopping at the other store, when they have no stock of certain items, I can usually find it at Bashas’. Also, my wife found that the freshly baked Bolillo rolls from Bashas’ are much better than those from the other store. Now we only buy our Bolillo rolls from Bashas’. The rolls I bought today are soft, fluffy, fresh and delicious. The store is always clean and has good lighting. Bashas’ also has covered parking and it’s easy to find a parking spot that is not very far from the entrance.
One of my dislikes about grocery stores in general is that they stack items on the ground blocking the aisles. Bashas’ does this too, however, their aisles are wider than the store across the street. Even with the items constricting the aisles, with fewer customers and wider aisles, this has never been a problem.