St Lucia Supermarket

Excellent corner store with a massive range of items in stock — including an extensive set of Asian ingredients and fresh vegetables (including the hard-​to-​find red shallot) and spices at good prices — this business appears to supply a number of local cafes and takeaways. Staff are friendly and helpful.
Be careful with expiry dates — their inventory control is poor and stuff is often well over expiry. Note that there’s no cash out (there’s a for-​fee ATM) or go card top up facilities here.

Everyone needs that little convenience store on the corner to run to in the mornings when there’s no milk or bread in the house. The only difference with the St Lucia Supermarket is that it’s not little and I run to it when I run out of fruit, vegetables, meat and spices.
You could easily do a week’s worth of grocery shopping here, however the small shopping baskets sort of prevent that from happening (unless you are the Incredible Hulk/​can survive off lettuce for every meal). This place houses everything from heavy duty household cleaning products, to cat food, personal hygiene goods, juices, baking goodies and a variety of frozen Asian food products. They often have specials on particular products (there’s often cheap pumpkins advertised out the front) and have an assortment of banana bread, muffins and slices at the counter, which sometimes act as a necessary source of comfort food.
So if you’re in the area and are running low on literally anything/​everything in your house; you can be sure to replenish your depleted stocks here.

I never really even paid attention to the name of St Lucia Supermarket until I had to write this review. Up until now, I always referred to it as the little Asian Supermarket on Fred Schonell. I have a warm spot in my heart for this grocery store. It was my local one for so long and I felt as if I visited it on almost a daily basis to pick up my milk and bread. It was flooded out earlier in the year but luckily has made a full comeback.
This is not your average supermarket. They sell slices of homemade banana bread or cakes on the front counter, and you always see the same staff who are kind and friendly. They have a great fresh food section. While it does not have a huge selection of vegetables you will find whatever they do stock is often of great quality and in season. They also stock a lot of Asian vegetables and packaged foods here that aren’t easily available elsewhere. If you wonder down the very tight aisles to the back you will find a tower of two minute noodles, bread, bags of rice and a wall full of spices. They have freezers full of pork buns and dim sums. They also stock all your other basic foods and needs like toilet paper, pencils, batteries etc. While not good for a big shop (you couldn’t fit a trolley down those aisles if you tried), it is the perfect spot to pick up those few missing ingredients for your next meal.