Once you step inside the Wegmans in Fairfax, you don’t know what you might find. The megastore — part blue-collar Safeway, part fussy Whole Foods, part wish-fulfillment Disneyland — offers a bewildering amount of products, from fresh-baked breads and freshly prepared meals to yoga clothes and housewares.
To food-obsessed adults, I suspect Wegmans generates a feeling they haven’t felt in years: like a kid in a candy store. One goddamn big candy store. One goddamn big candy store that knows you can’t sell only imported Belgian dark chocolate with 62 percent cocoa mass. You gotta have Ho Hos and Ding Dongs, too, baby.
Last weekend I made only my second visit to a Wegmans, this time to document many of the things one could buy there. (Such visits won’t require a trip to Fairfax in the near future, since the privately held chain has plans to open stores in Alexandria, Columbia, Germantown, Landover, and other nearby towns.)
Take a look at my Alice in Wonderland trip through Wegmans:
In-house bakery
Pastries from in-house bakery
Indian buffet
Sub shop
Salmon, many different ways
Fresh mahi mahi
Meat counter, heavy on choice cuts
Crab cake sandwich from the in-house cafe
Seared scallops with citrus-soy sauce at in-house cafe
Wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano and other cheeses
Huge selection of craft and import beers
Olive bar
Wide selection of teas
More cheese
Pre-packaged fruits and veggies
Bagged lettuces
Cosmetics
Expensive wine glasses
Housewares
Baby supplies
Kitchen supplies
DVDs
Greeting cards
Pet supplies
Commercial breads and a company timeline overhead
Light bulbs and paper goods
Wegmans butter
Wegmans finishing butters
Kosher foods
Wegmans coffee
Lots and lots of magazines
Books, emphasis on best-sellers
Compared to the beer, the wine selection is paltry.
Processed cheese
Yoga clothes
“Combination” remedies
“New Age” beverages
Flowers
Organic seedless cucumbers
Conventional seedless cucumbers
Beefsteak tomatoes from Mexico
Pizza bar
Chicken wing bar
Wegmans cream and yogurt
Utz cheese balls!