This Single Idaho Grocery Store Was Just Named the Best in the State

When it comes to grocery shopping, even the most spontaneous Idahoans tend to be creatures of habit. You have a favorite grocery store and you feel extremely out of sorts when you shop somewhere else. 

Living in Southeast Boise, we’ve shopped at the Parkcenter Albertsons for well over a decade. Sure, there are probably more affordable options out there, but this store is on our way home. We know the layout like the back of our hand. The staff is basically our extended family at this point. It just feels like home, even though fancy Albertsons on Broadway could also be on the way home if we took Broadway instead of Parkcenter. 

READ MORE: WinCo Foods Named Best Retail Employer in Idaho

That’s what makes a recent list from LoveFood so interesting. They took on the daunting task of naming the best grocery store in every state, knowing full well that food shopping is personal and tied to routine. What’s interesting about the choice for Idaho is that the popular food blog chose a single store, not the full chain like they did for other states. 

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For example, in Arkansas they chose “Edwards Food Giant, Various Locations.” In Massachusetts they chose “Market Basket, Various Locations.” And in New York? “Wegmans, various locations.”  

This is where WinCo enters the chat. The Idaho-born grocery store was founded in Boise and for plenty of shoppers it feels like the no-frills option in the best ways possible. WinCo feels a little more warehouse-like than Albertsons. Their prices are lower more often than not.

And the bulk food section? It deserves its own fan club. From bins of pasta and rice to candy and spices, there’s no reason to buy more than you need and have the excess sit forgotten in your pantry for years. Plus, it’s pretty cool that WinCo let us live our childhood dreams of bagging our own groceries long before self-checkout became standard and forced us to do it at other stores. 

LoveFood does believe that WinCo stands above the rest of Idaho’s grocery options, but instead of naming the entire chain best in the state they crowned the Moscow location as the single best grocery store in the entire state.

While WinCo has 13 locations across Idaho, LoveFood seems to think that this store does everything just a little bit better than the others. They claim their list was based on “user reviews, awards and accolades and the first-hand experience of our team.” 

In choosing the Moscow location LoveFood added:

There are often extra discounts when bulk-buying goods at the Moscow store