TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin French side groceries

We normally stop at Simply in Hope Estates for provisions when we arrive. Did I read somewhere that they are out of business or not well stocked? Is this true? Should we go somewhere else? We arrive on Wednesday

There have been numerous reports over the past few months of no stock at Simply. Best option on the french side now for a large store is Super U in Marigot (where Match used to be). In Orient Village, Petit Casino is fairly well stocked also..

Simply in Hope Estate is changing over to aSuper U according to the staff at the store. Not well stocked and not sure how long the changeover will take.

Does SuperU have primarily American on EU grocery products? I have a sensitivity to soy which is hiding everywhere in pretty much all American food - soy flour, soybean oil, soy lecithin. EU food doesn't seem to contain the same huge amounts of soy, so I prefer that when on island.

Super U is mostly product from the EU. There are very few US products there.

Thank you <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Just went there this afternoon. The shelves were hardly stocked with anything at all. The cashier said they were closing in a month. And, if I understood her correctly (and that is a big question) - some other market from Marigot is coming in to that space.

rmg---Just to be clear, you're talking about Simply with the bare shelves, correct??? Not Super U??

The market was Simply. We thought it was closed when we first pulled in as there was only one or two cars and virtually no activity to be seen.

Is the US Supermarche no longer open in Hope Estate? Used it quite a lot last summer. Thanks.

The US Market, now called Simply, in Hope Estate, is closing. They will reopen next month as Super U.

We went to both in March.

Simply (U S Market) was like something out of a post-apocalypse movie.

We finally gave up and went down to Super U. It was jammed but had very little in the way of US goods. So we ended up leaving without many things we needed. (Super U's selection isn't as good as Grande Marche's was. )

We have been spoiled by Simply, and stopped bringing things that we knew that we could get there. So we Spent time off and on over the next week getting the odds and ends we needed.

So, bottom line, we weren't happy with either one and will need to figure out "Plan C".

We were at Super U, Grand Marche at the roundabout, Carrefour and Maho Market within the past couple of days.

Impressions---Grand Marche at the roundabout unfortunately appears to no longer have any Carrefour products. They do continue have all the US brands, if you're willing to pay for them. They also have decent sales on wine. This week, GM at the roundabout and Carrefour (but apparently NOT the GM Gourmet) has some really good specials, including hamburger for $4.44 a KILO, and FLORIDA seedless watermelons for $4.50. The watermelon was actually very good and the hamburger also made an excellent lunch today.

Super U appears to ONLY have French wines, with just a few wines from other places, the prices for wine, while good, don't seem to be as fantastic as they used to be. Super U was doing $1.05 to the Euro for cash, not exactly sure what they were doing for a credit card, which is what we used. Super U was JAMMED today, as they were closed yesterday for a holiday, and with today being Saturday. A US quarter works to use the carts at Super U (which you get back when you return the carts). The full sized carts are different than US carts, as the wheels go ANY direction, so they are difficult to use to begin with, until you get used to them. We also went to their bakery and got some petit baguettes, chocolate eclairs and a half dozen assorted croissant for around $8 total..

Maho Market, I don't care for, in general. We stopped there last night to try to get some sides to go with some ribs and chicken that we picked up at Captain D's for dinner. We bought some stuff off the buffet, that was OK.

We did find a nice little store called Hope Market next to Simply. We went to simply and they had no eggs and found Hope and they had a lot of things that we needed. We did like to shop at simply but they had less and less each time. Changes everywhere.
Ellen

There is a market just beyond the Hope Estate round-about on the way to Orient called Leader Price. Size wise, it's between a convenience store and Simply.

For basic items, it's a good place to shop, with virtually all products being French. It also has a good selection of decent wines in the €6-10 range.

What about the Simply in Sandy Ground..always got my fresh ham there and there packages of cheeses?