The Most Popular Grocery Chain in America, According to Shoppers

Grocery store preferences are highly personal and fiercely debated. Perhaps you’ve vented your frustrations to friends or posted online reviews—but now, those complaints are no longer confined to your group chat. 

We now have a comprehensive view of the best and worst grocery stores in the United States, thanks to a new report from Solitaired. The study examines Google review data from the largest retailers in the country and aims to reveal exactly where shoppers’ loyalties lie. 

Beloved budget chain Trader Joe’s overwhelmingly — and unsurprisingly — won over shoppers’ hearts. Of the 118 locations that Solitaired examined, it received a glowing overall rating of 4.65 stars. Regional Florida-based chain Publix was close behind, earning a 4.5-star rating. Another regional company, WinCo, boasts 142 employee-owned stores across the United States and received an average of 4.47 stars. 

Those findings are consistent with other shopper surveys, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s 2025 report. (In that study, more than 41,000 shoppers crowned Trader Joe’s and Publix as the top supermarkets in the country.) There are several commonalities among the most-loved stores, as Unwind Media and Solitaired co-founder Neal Taparia explains. 

“On the list of the best grocery stores, you will frequently see smaller market-style stores with more positive consumer reviews. We even had farmers markets at the top of the best grocery stores list,” Taparia tells Food & Wine. “Trader Joe’s was the only chain store to buck the trend. We believe this is because these smaller stores, including Trader Joe’s, focus on curating a better selection of food and emphasize customer service.”

Among smaller, local grocery stores across the United States, based on Google Reviews. Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg, Florida, received the highest shopper ratings overall with an impressive average of 4.8 stars. A Freshfields Farm location in Orlando took second place, while Glorioso’s Italian Market in Milwaukee secured third.

Aisles of frustration: the chains with the worst ratings 

The worst-rated retailer in this study is the Kroger-owned King Soopers, a chain of stores in Colorado and Wyoming that received an average of 3.84 stars from reviews. Shoppers also appear to have numerous complaints about Walmart, which operates more than 4,000 locations across the United States. (It earned an average of 3.95 stars for the 525 locations included in this report.) 

It also gives us a peek into the worst zip codes for a grocery run: Jersey City in New Jersey ranked as the worst for quality and pricing in this study. Across the Hudson River, New York City also unsurprisingly received negative Google reviews for the same categories. 

“Right now, many people are looking to be careful when spending, so these rankings can show where you can expect to get the best quality food for your dollar and where you will have a pleasant experience locally,” Taparia says.

As for methodology, the report focused on the biggest headaches of grocery shopping — price, staffing, selection, and wait times. To assess shoppers’ attitudes towards these factors, Solitaired’s researchers began by identifying the top 30 grocery chains in the United States. 

They then scraped seven million Google reviews from the hundred most populated cities in the country, focusing on negative keywords (like “expensive” and “slow”) from approximately 3,000 grocery stores’ review pages. Researchers confined this study to ratings of three stars and below to concentrate on negative feedback and thus, “valuable insights” for improvement, the report states. 

The Miami Beach-based gaming company says its users often queue up its mobile games in the grocery store line — but no matter how you fill those moments, here’s hoping that wait is brief.