Mid-Michigan Dining

• 730 E. Saginaw Hwy.
• Grand Ledge, MI 48837
• (517) 622-6800
• Website

The Grand Ledge Meijer store located just on the edge of town on Saginaw Highway

It’s October and I need charcoal.  Just because it’s fall and quickly becoming winter doesn’t mean I’m going to stop grilling.  According to most mega marts, I should be putting up tacky Christmas ornaments, not grilling a pork loin.  I’m also a charcoal snob, so that makes things a little bit tougher.  No briquettes for me.  The chemicals used to press them together annoy me.  If you don’t let it totally ash over, you’ll pick up the chemicals in your food.  I’m not that patient, so I use natural hardwood lump charcoal.  We looked at Wal-Mart, but all they had was the Kingsford crap.  I was just going to run to the Meijer by our place to see what they had, but since we were in Grand Ledge anyway for lunch, I decided to stop at the Grand Ledge store.

The Meijer in Grand Ledge is just on the edge of town on Saginaw Highway.  It’s a newer store with the newer facade.  It’s not quite the “main street” concept store they’re starting to roll out, but it’s in between that and the old boxy type like the store on Pennsylvania.  The inside of the store is a drastic difference too.  J made the comment that it’s much less overwhelming than the other stores around here we’ve been in.  My complain about Meijer is just that it’s so darn big.  It’s hard to find things and can be frustrating if you have to shop in a couple different departments.

We weren’t in the market for food.  Just charcoal, so we headed straight back to lawn and garden.  We found a few bags of crappy briquettes, but there was also an interesting bag there.  It was a bag of Frontier All Natural Briquettes and it boasted no chemicals.  I couldn’t find the lump charcoal at first as it was hidden back with what they have left of the grills.  By the time I found it, I already had the briquettes in my hand.  The briquettes I bought and the lump charcoal they had were the same brand and a brand that I’ve used before, so I figured there shouldn’t be much difference.

The check out lines at this particular Meijer offer another unique feature.  There are TV’s in every lane playing clips mostly related to cooking and there’s a ESPN-style bottom line with weather conditions.  The lines were all too long and since I was paying and only had a few things, I went to the self-checkout.  Along with a Coke Zero I had to have, my total bill was under seven bucks. 

Meijer is a funny chain.  While other chains focus so much on every store being exactly the same, Meijer isn’t afraid of growth and change.  It seems like every store I go in, I found a different layout and there are things I like and don’t like about it.  This style store is much more friendly than the others.  It’s still big, but it doesn’t feel as big and overwhelming as some of the other stores.