Grocery Shopping in San Juan Del Sur

Grocery shopping in San Juan Del Sur is different than grocery shopping in Atlanta. There is one large grocery store called Palí on the outskirts of the town. It is the size of a CVS drugstore, and offers the variety of food that a CVS drug store offers. There is some produce (the quality is not great) and a meat counter (we were told not to buy meat at Palí). You can get cleaning supplies and toiletries along with limited food items. The only low sugar cereal is corn flakes. There are no pre-made freezer meals.

We opt to shop in town at the small convenience store type shops. These shops are family-owned and have an eclectic mix of food items. We found Kraft mac ‘n’ cheese the first few times we shopped, but we have not found any in a while.  Judy once found Parmesan cheese, but it belonged to the store owner. It was open and the store owner kept it in the cooler to put on her lunch.

The small stores we shop at most are the Miscellaneous Sanchez shops. There are two locations just blocks away from each other, and these stores have a good selection of imported food that we miss like pickles, cheddar cheese, and artichokes. We can get milk, bread, pasta, canned goods, and peanut butter at these stores.

A few weeks ago we scored a 10 lbs bag of pancake mix at Miscellaneous Sanchez and it is the best food purchase we have made so far on this trip. In addition to pancakes we can make biscuits, batter shrimp, make onion rings and use it on other dishes that call for flour. We are also going to try to make donuts.

Finding laundry detergent is not easy. They have a lot of powder detergent options, but we have a high-efficiency washer (it has been broken since we moved in, but we are hopeful that one day it will be fixed). The only liquid we could find at Pali is for black clothes. We found Dreft at one of the smaller stores in town, but nothing for high-efficiency washing machines.

We buy fruits and vegetables either at the Mercado or a veggie store a block away from the Mercado. The selection is limited. We have not had berries since we have been here except in a smoothie we bought from a smoothie shop. The most common fruits are pineapples, cantaloupe, and watermelon. Bananas are not great here and you have to make sure that you do not buy plantains by mistake— unless you like plantains. The veggies we cannot find in town are asparagus, brussel sprouts, fresh green beans, and sweet potatoes. We eat a lot of white potatoes, eggplant, onions, green peppers, and carrots.

We buy our chicken either frozen at Miscellaneous Sanchez or from the chicken store next to the Mercado. We buy our beef and pork at the Carnicería at the edge of town on the way to Palí.

While we miss the convenience of a one-stop-shop, we eat healthier without the processed food options that we often chose when we lived in the United States. We still buy chips and cookies and sugar cereal, but we mostly eat fresh homemade meals.

Before coronavirus struck, the boys would go out to the store by themselves to get groceries. They loved having the responsibility.

There are also not a lot of places to shop for clothes and other goods. The boys are starting to grow out of their shoes and there are no shoe stores in San Juan Del Sur. There are stores with clothing, but they are more like thrift stores. There is no rhyme nor reason to what they might have on a given day.

We did not have the opportunity to venture out to bigger cities before coronavirus hit. Many people here go to Managua where they have a Pricemart (aka Costco) and other stores like those in the United States. We are doing fine without those stores. We are saving money and there is nothing that we can’t live without that we cannot get here in San Juan Del Sur. With that said, there are ways we can order from those bigger stores, and we might try it out since we are going to be here longer than expected.