Interesting
Well we stopped for the Lidl grand opening, didn't enter the store. They did not have the typical gun buster sign, but a no this, and that sign, top of the list no firearms. From what I have seen online videos of the inside they are nothing special. We will still give our money to Walmart, and Food Lion.
The store is only 36K square feet, and they carry non food junk, so I see concerns with selection, and I doubt their prices will be worth supporting an anti gun store.
My wife and I shopped at the Lidl in Newport News/Hampton area yesterday. I did not see any signs prohibiting firearms but I admit I did not read any posters since I was actually looking for the gun buster sign. There were two security guards at the entrance and either they did not notice my gun or chose to ignore it.
As for the store itself. It is just a glorified Aldi's, and Aldi's aint much. The deli is just bagels, donuts, and thaw and sell breads. The produce is merchandised in their original shipping boxes and the prices were fair but selection was very limited, as you will see in every department. The meat department consisted of a case of no-brand-name chicken tenders and boneless breasts, two or three of the cases were obviously broken and had no meat in them at all. There was no beef merchandised anywhere, probably should have been in one of the broken cases. The lunchmeat case offered no variety except no-brand-name junk. Juice? Nah, only generic juice and 4 half gallons of Minute Maid lemonade. No lactose free products that I could find. The middle two aisles of the store contained pallets upon pallets of junk. If you need to buy bulk supplies of phone chargers and drink coaster then this is a good deal for you. Otherwise, its all junk!
Frozen food contained a minimal selection of name brands and 90% non-branded garbage that 7-11 wouldn't even carry. The beer case had no major brands, no budweiser, no miller, no coors, the only recognizable name I saw was a pallet of PBR. I picked up a 4pack of Belgian Ale and the power to the beer case went out at the same time causing a thermal curtain to automatically come down, which hit me in the wrist. The toilet paper section contained 5 or so pallets of non-branded items. Health and beauty care was a 20 foot section of cheap k-mart style selections.
My wife and I grabbed two packs of hot dogs, Bar S brand since that was the ONLY brand they carried that we could find. We had to go to WaWa to get hot dog buns as Lidl had none. Upon checkout, I noticed that there were no bag racks on the registers. There was a bagger who bagged for us using some fancy plastic bags. These same bags were stored on the CUSTOMERS side of the register with price labels of 6 cents and 10 cents. I have a feeling that once the grand opening is over, you will have to purchase your own plastic bags. Time will tell.
The air conditioning was not working in the store and the cashier was covered in sweat.
I don't know if the 'rack n sack' style stores (Aldi's and Lidl) will become popular in Virginia but I hope not. I really do not like the bulk non branded 'stack a case on the shelf and call it done' type of grocery stores at all. There is absolutely no personal one on one contact with associates in any of the 'fresh' departments. There are no value added products or in-store made foods to be found with the exception of the bakery which MAY bake some par baked items.
I took about 100 pictures while there last night if anyone wants to see how bad it really was.
