TallGuyJohninBKK

Ploenchit Arcade: Source link:

Interesting tidbit of history... Was the old Ploenchit Foodland the very first one? Seems so, according to Wikipedia... "In the year 1972, the grocery store business is very new in Thailand the only groceries store that was available at that time is “Daily Lane”. Thus, Mr. Somsak Teraphatakul and his partners decided to first open the grocery store named “Pleonchit Supermarket” it is the first 24 hours opening of a supermarket in Asia. After 6 months, Mr. Somsak and his partner have made a decision to open the second branches of the supermarket named “Patpong Supermarket” which is located on Patpong road." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodland_(Thailand) Via Google Translate: "Until the year 1972, Somsak decided to make a supermarket in Thailand. He and 7 other investors decided to invest 3 million baht to open the first supermarket under the name 'Ploenchit Supermarket' located in the Ploenchit Arcade with an area of approximately 400 square meters." "In the early days, Took Lae Dee had a coffee shop corner whose main purpose was for husbands to sit and wait for their wives while shopping for groceries." https://workpointtoday.com/the-story-of-foodland/

yep, that looks like the trademark kind of Foodland frontage! That definitely was before my time....there....

Farang gotta eat... and not just noodles and pad krapow from the street vendors!

The standalone markets like Foodland Soi 5 and Villa Soi 11 and 33 are all air conditioned, more or less. But the one thing that's different about them, vs the mall based supermarket locations, is the standalone places do tend to be easier and quicker to get into and out of vs. the supermarkets contained within big mall structures. At both Central Chidlom and especially CentralWorld, there's a fair amount of time-consuming walking and going up and down levels to get into and out of the supermarkets there... None of that at the standalones.... But, that advantage doesn't do any good for the standalones, especially regarding Foodland, if they don't actually stock the things I want/need to buy...

Wave Place at Ploenchit? But it only opened in 1996... There's also the opposite corner where there's a more recently developed (2012) hotel and retail high-rise called the Park Ventures Ecoplex (nice name... ???? ) where the Okura Prestige Hotel is located... But I don't recall what was there, before it was built.

Indeed! Funny about that... ???? Pop in there periodically, when I'm lookiing for something in particular of Japanese cuisine... Kinda like that place...and they have some nice fresh food selections you won't find elsewhere, along with what struck me as some pretty good beef selections. I haven't noticed any change in the place, thru the years.

I've noticed that in the past with the Tops Robinson's location as well at times... But truth to be told, at various other supermarket locations around BKK as well from time to time... What used to be very bad was when Bangkok flooded amid heavy rains, the entire basement of the Robinson's complex where the Tops market is located also would get flooded with muck, and that probably didn't help matters any. All the rest, well, that's part of what you deal with living in Bangkok.

So Bangkok history lesson... I first came to Bangkok almost 20 years ago, and as best as I recall, the current Foodland Soi 5 location was open then, as was the prior Villa Market location at the top of Soi 11. So, prior to that, there was a freestanding Foodland somewhere along Ploenchit Road instead???

Being tall, I have to duck to avoid hitting my head every time I venture into Foodland Soi 5,,,, And if I need to bend down to look at some item on the lower/bottom level of a shelf, I'm taking up the entire narrow width of their aisles. Villa Soi 33 is almost as bad or as bad when it comes to narrow aisles... But at least I don't have to worry as much about hitting my head on the ceiling there.

Huh? How can a location be "on Ploenchit" and "close to Ekkamai"...when they're two different parallel streets some miles apart from each other?

One thing I like in particular about the service staff at Tops Central Chidlom Food Hall is, if they're out of some item, you can actually persuade them via their main customer service counter, especially via the on-duty manager, to check their on-site warehouse and even their computer system of stock in other stores. And if they find the item elsewhere, they'll have it transferred to their store for you to buy there, sometimes even on the same day while you wait... I can't say I've ever encountered that kind of service from Foodland or Villa. Now if I could just get the Tops Food Hall folks (I've failed miserably thus far) to actually pay attention on their own to when they run out of something, and if they do run out, to on their own think maybe it might be a good idea to obtain some available stock sitting around unpurchased at other locations. That part, they just can't seem to manage to do.

I used to live off on Tops-stocked 2 liter Waiitrose sparking water bottles... But with COVID, Tops (even their Food Hall locations) became very inconsistent in being able to keep in stock that product and a lot of other imported items as well... So in the end, I gave up on them and bought my own home carbonation system for making sparking water... Tops probably lost about 1000b per week in Waitrose sales from me on that deal....

I've also always found it a bit interesting how the different supermarket chains have somewhat different home country affiliations via their products... Villa, to me, has always had the best selection of US-centric imported brands. Tops has long had an emphasis on UK brands via their affiliation with Waitrose... And Carrefour used to have the same for France with their house brands, and that has continued somewhat with their Big C successors and their present stocking of a few things from the Casino brand.

ya, Villa's original Soi 11 location lost their lease...and/or...were unwilling to pay the higher rate at expiration being demanded by their landlord, pre-COVID, if I recall.... As things turned out, the landlord there might have been better off to have kept Villa in their portfolio at the very convenient top of the soi, BTS-close location. At least you pretty much can be assured that Villa the company isn't likely to go out of business in most scenarios. Back then, the original Villa Soi 11 market was my default, go-to shopping location.... Alas, no longer. Their relocation to a more remote location along with the emergence of online shopping due to COVID changed all that.

It's weird how grocery store chains here make their location decisions. --Foodland originally had the Soi 5 location, then they added a much larger and nicer new location at Suk Soi 16 a relatively short distance away... but kept Soi 5 and even kinda remodeled it a couple years back. --Villa had an original larger location at the top of Suk Soi 11, and then a smaller and less used location in the basement of the Ploenchit Center... Then they moved the Soi 11 location to a new and smaller location very far into the soi... But then came along and opened a new and larger location not far away on Soi Langsuan, while keeping both Ploenchit and Soi 11. --Lately, Tops has been opening bunches of new store locations in various areas between Asoke and Thong Lor... and make their already confusing marketing even more confusing by adding newer brands/locations like "Tops Fine Food" in addition to the large "Tops Food Halls" and regular "Tops Supermarkets," and now lately even the Costco-like "Tops Club Rama II."

Are you talking about Foodland or Villa?

I'd be a bit leary of fresh produce from the Khlong Toei market... Thailand has problems with excessive pesticide use and residues on their fruits and veggies.... as has been documented in the past by the private group ThaiPAN, which ran its own lab certified random testing in past years. And the stuff that ends up in fresh markets is probably untracked and little regulated... though even the major supermarkets also had problems with this in the past... even among items labeled "organic," which tends to have little meaning/value if it's a Thai government "organic" designation.

I thought the Soi 5 branch used to have car parking available in one of the structures nearby there.... but I'm not a car driver here...so can't say for certain. PS - one of the reasons I've stopped shopping at Villa stores in person so much over the years is I kept getting OLD fresh produce from their veggies section. Whereas, the fresh veggies at Foodland Soi 5 always were kept well refrigerated and I never got rotten tomato or wilted lettuce from them. The old Villa branch on Soi 11, before it relocated further into the soi, used to keep a lot of their vegetables sitting out on counters or shelves, non refrigerated. They used to sell packages of tomatoes, two per tray wrapped in plastic wrap....and I can't tell you the number of times I got them home, opened the package, and found the underneath/down facing parts of the tomatoes had gone bad, and no way to see or tell that while looking at the package in the store.

Makro sometimes has them, sometimes doesn't... And probably depends on the branch involved. This is what they look like. And it seems they've changed the brand they're carrying also. From the Sathorn branch. Villa also stocks the smaller jars of the El Sabor brand of sliced jalapenos... But I've never cared for them, as they come out of the jar soft and soggy.... Whereas the Mezzetta brand from the US comes out firm and a bit crunchy, as you'd expect from a fresh cut jalapeno pepper.

It sounds like you've got some entirely different kind of delivery operation going on in your area. Our Tops Online grocery deliveries, ordered via the Tops app or website, always come via a delivery truck, never a motorcycle. I'd only get a motorcycle if I was instead doing a small Tops order via Grab or Foodpanda. And with Grab or Foodpanda, you can pay via cash upon delivery, but also can pay via stored bank card within their apps. My US bank cards work just fine with both the Foodpanda and Grab apps for all purposes.

Villa's are the best/easiest place for jalapenos (Mezzetta brand from the U.S.)... unless you want to go big time to Makro for the 2+ kilo Casa Fiesta tins they sometimes have in stock.

That's interesting. So Tops may have more than one delivery hub for the Bangkok area... Sukhumvit area customers definitely are served by their Rama III location. I guess my main point was, AFAIK, Tops Online at least in central BKK doesn't just deliver from whatever is the nearest local store to your home. I've got a dozen or more different Tops market and Central Food Hall locations far closer to my home than the Rama III branch that our deliveries come from. As for foreign bank cards, I've always had trouble using mine if I try to pay via the Tops onllne website... But instead, I choose the "pay on delivery" option, and the delivery folks carry with them the handheld bank card reading machine. And I've never had my US cards declined once via that route over many years of use with Tops. I used to have the same problem with Tesco... Couldn't get the Tesco website to accept my US bank cards... But the hand-held card machines carried by their drivers worked perfectly fine.

It can be a whole lot more convenient that going out in the smog and heat. Tops online does free delivery on orders 1000b and above. Gourmet Market I believe is 1500b and above, but still will deliver lower orders for a set fee... And these days, you can order groceries from Tops, Gourmet Market and LotusS -- but not Foodland or Villa -- via either the FoodPanda or Grab apps, and get either free delivery or for a very low fee even with small sized orders. These days, I'd say 75% or more of our grocery shopping is done online, even though I'm within walking distance of Villa, Tops, Foodland branches, and short BTS trips to either Central Food Halls or Gourmet Markets. PS - FWIW, I haven't noticed in my increasingly rare visits that Foodland Soi 5 is doing any big business in deliveries..... but I'm not hanging out there watching all day every day, either... so who knows.

AFAIK, there are no legal "trusts" in Thailand. There isn't such a thing provided for in Thai law.