Thrifty Foods

Claims to be open until 11 but isn’t. Someone else said they close at 9 which means they’re totally wasting people’s time

Great selection and variety of fresh foods. The staff are friendly and helpful. I'm from out of town and was shopping for an elderly friend.

For this store to be called Thrifty Foods is a joke. Not only are they not Thrifty, they are a very expensive grocery store.

Their staff are stuck up, and when you finally track one down, they have their noses so far in the air they will drown when it rains.

Little pricey and also don’t have many cashiers on during the after work rush. But location is clean and the staff is friendly

Edit: it’s now Feb 2023 and I just had the most wonderful experience in the deli. The lady working took extra time to ask me if I liked olives, and when I said no she proceeded to avoid them as she served my Greek salad. 10/10.

Lots of BC grown produce available. Scene+ loyalty program. Friendly and knowledgeable employees. Great customer service. Great seafood department. In house Sushi is great.

Prices can be a bit steep compared to Superstore and Walmart. But Thriftys has great weekly sales that start every Thursday.

Pro Tip of the day

When selling chicken strip to go, have some dip to buy.

For more pro tips, give me a shout

Great staff, the butchers willingly cut up the meat to fit my needs, the bakery department happily slices the sourdough bread for me and the tellers are always pleasant. It is a great place to shop.

The staff are friendly and helpful. Prices are good and they have everything I wanted except bugles.

Their monster cookies are one of my son's favourites. We tried one of their meat pies for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed it but my son thought it was 'okay'. He's a fan of turkey or chicken meat pies. Unfortunately they didn't have any of those.

Prices have gone up everywhere but the prices here I find are too steep especially considering it is downtown and people in the area generally have less to spend

It's a smaller store with less variety than a super-market, but it's aesthetically pleasing and things are close together. Good place to get meat, eggs, and milk/alternatives. Produce is consistently pricey, as are the cheeses & name brand breads, their house made bread is more affordable. They have a lot of specialty cheeses, a deli, and rotisserie chicken. Service is always good, sometimes a bit slow in the checkout lane. I don't recommend the self checkout, every-time you adjust something in the bag it freezes and red-flags, super frustrating, pretty much have to scan it all in, pay, then organize into your bags, and you have to get a worker to enter the discount stickers manually.probably fine for just a few items.

Friendly staff and good prices. Have only had few bad experiences but they followed it with being super kind and apologetic

Cashiers need to not roll their eyes at poc then be kind to the next customer who isnt poc! Train them not to be so obviously racist. Thanks. Also ask your floor walkers to at least look like they are buying stuff instead of following me to the shampoo aisle then the bakery and not even have a basket with him. Just staring. Creepy vibes. Thanks
Luckily I enjoy your fresh food though

Friendly staff, ok produce, amazing local finds (peasant bread, etc) but the prices (even before pandemic) are much higher than other bigger grocery stores.

Ordered Christmas flowers for a friend who had a really bad week. I understand it’s a busy time of year, I also understand needing to make some substitutions. But if you literally can’t fulfill any aspect of the order except a pine cone, you should call to ensure they still want to proceed, particularly when the value is now about 1/2 of what you paid. What I ordered vs.what I got.

It's a wonderful and nice store, but sometimes I wish they weren't so expensive. But it's a great store overall.

Amazing selection of candy, some you can't get in the grocery store. Root beer candy, clove gum, old timey candy and new types too. No nondairy chocolate ice cream tho but there's fruit kind.

Beautiful store but so expensive. Bagged salad for $6.50 when I can get it at Superstore for $5. I find this with a lot of things.so I really only go for convenience

There will be a plastic bag ban in nanaimo starting jul 1st, 2021, I hate how thrifties gives out paper bags, they got no handles and they fall apart within seconds of being in the rain. I hope starting jul 1st, 2021 thrifties will stop using paper bags and use cloth bags only.

Waaay too many people in the store. No line up outside was nice, but impossible to shop and maintain 2 meter separation. Really uncomfortable.

I really liked Thrifty Foods when I first moved to Nanaimo from Vancouver in 1998.
Overall, it was a great community grocery store.
I feel that it's become rather elitist and somehow lacking in joy.
Thriftys Flower's however has ALWAYS had awesome customer service and is definitely more welcoming.

Great supermarket. Range and cleanliness.
I like the checkout system, with the intercom to guide customers to next available cashier.
Really like the location to. Plenty of parking.

The staff and security guard are friendly and nice. They make a delicious chicken soup as well as stellar salsa. I like how they offer instead of just a whole chicken (which is also delicious) they have just a breast it makes a yummy lunch snack.
Some of the prices are a little pricey but some things only found here are worth it.

Lots of BC grown produce available. Air Miles program. Friendly and knowledgeable employees. Great customer service. Great seafood department. In house Sushi is great

For one the store was dirty and the deli Male associate was so not friendly. I asked for my food heated he gave it to me cold. I saw kids playing around in the bulk bins with there hands picking up the bulk stuff and putting back in the bin a very dirty store

Great location, excellent selection of produce, nice bakery and friendly staff. Large parking lot but also on bus route, so really convenient.

Pretty good variety of products, great quality of everything. I liked shopping there while in nanaimo

When sale hunting, this place is pretty great.
I also collect airmiles so that's awesome too. The produce is always fresh, and they've dealt with some of the loitering outside too.

Clean store, friendly staff, great products, good selection but, rather high prices. Sale prices are typical to regular prices at other stores.

Acceptable.nobody helped me try to find peabutbutter powder but I eventually found it and the cashier was pleasant.

Thrifty foods is a well maintained, well put together chain of grocery stores. Meat departments are there strong suits.