Missouri Has One of the Worst and Best Grocery Stores In America

Missouri is home to one of the absolute worst grocery stores, as well as one of the better grocery stores in America, at least if you look at star ratings and the number of reviews.

An online solitaire website did the heavy lifting and number crunching to come up with the lists. People like to play the site's solitaire games at the grocery store. At least that's their excuse for doing the research and putting this list together.

Favorite grocery chains across America include Trader Joe's, Costco, and Wegmans. Least favorite grocery chains include Save A Lot, King Soopers, and Kroger. To identify the best and worst grocery stores in the United States, the site focused on stores with 1,000 reviews and then combined both the star rating and number of reviews to rank each store.

Two Trader Joe's locations, one in Gilbert, Arizona, and one in St. Petersburg, Florida take the top two spots. A place called Central Market in Fort Worth, Texas places third. After that, the Top 10 is all Trader Joe's. It's obvious Trader Joe's customers love shopping there. Trader Joe's dominates the Top 50 best grocery stores in the United States if this research is to be believed.

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So it shouldn't be a surprise that Trader Joe's at 6800 Ward Parkway in Kansas City came in at #11 on the list of best grocery stores.

When it comes to the worst grocery stores, there doesn't seem to be a dominant chain that's a "winner" in this category, although Walmart and Safeway tend to have a lot of stores on the list in the Top 50.

The worst grocery store in America is Giant Eagle on Cedar Avenue in Pittsburgh. Coming in at number three is the Walmart Supercenter on East Exposition Avenue in Aurora, Colorado. The rest of the top 10 is rounded out by Walmart, and a Safeway and Kroger location each making the list.

Number 2 on the list of worst grocery stores in America is in Missouri. It's Metro Thriftway on East 63rd Street in Kansas City, Mo.

According to the online solitaire website, Trader Joe's makes up 90% of the best grocery stores in America, while Walmart makes up 38% of the worst grocery stores in America.

This is my opinion, but I find it hard to believe that Trader Joe's is that good. I think their shoppers are really into shopping there and perhaps that's reflected in this list.

As for Walmart, that number doesn't surprise me. As much as people shop at Walmart, the very nature of their supercenters and their dominance in many areas can make people dislike them from the start. Add a crowded shopping experience, huge parking lots, and the rest of it, and I can see where they'd wind up being one of the dominant chains on the worst list.

Frankly, give me a grocery store that's a little smaller than a Supercenter with decent selections, price the items so I don't feel I'm overpaying for the privilege of shopping at the store, and create a culture of friendly and helpful staffers and I'm there.

Keep scrolling for a list of the most popular grocery stores in America.

Full disclosure, Rob Creighton is a compensated endorser for Hy-Vee of Warrensburg on Kix 105.7.