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Aldi St. Pete, FL

Aldi Grand Opening and What to Expect From Aldi’s Redesign

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Aldi has announced the opening of 2500 more stores through 2022 and one of those stores is down the street from me. Have a peek at Aldi’s new design and all the perks that come from visiting opening week!

Do I love anything more than Aldi? Other than my husband, probably not.

So when developers broke ground on what was to be a new Aldi less than 5 minutes from my new house, I was excited, to say the least. I’ve been waiting forever to share with you the awesomeness that is the new Aldi and they did not disappoint!

That’s right, not only is Aldi more than doubling its current number of stores, over 1300 existing stores are getting a facelift by 2020. Chances are you’re going to be seeing the new face of Aldi in the near future and I’m here to spoil the surprise.

New Aldi Stores Opening

Aldi currently has stores opening in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Whew!

Aldi Grand Opening

A few days before the Aldi grand opening we got a flyer in the mail announcing the date and time of the event. Save the flyer because on the back there’s a $5 off $30 coupon!

Aldi doesn’t accept manufacturer coupons and I never see Aldi coupons so this may be the first and last time you’ll get your hands on them.

Aldi was set to open at 9 am. I got there right before and they’d already cut the ribbon and let people inside so if you want to be there for the festivities I’d get there at 8:30. You might also want to get there early because, at most openings, the first 100 customers are entered into a drawing for a “Golden Ticket” worth up to $100.

Personally, I like to buy discounted gift cards from Gift Card Granny and shop for groceries with those but while they have like hundreds of thousands of discounted gift cards they rarely have ones for Aldi. Another reason to take advantage of these grand opening savings!

Our Aldi actually opened the day before the “grand opening” so if you’re looking to get a peek before the crowds I’d stop by the day before. I’m not sure when it opened the day before and I wasn’t able to make it down there but all the specials are the day of the opening so weigh what’s more important to you.

I’ve also seen that they do the same specials for an Aldi grand re-opening that they do for an opening so don’t miss out! 

Aldi Grand Opening
Produce at my new Aldi

When I walked in I was pretty surprised by how refined the store looked. I’m used to walking into Aldi’s warehouse style building and walking their familiar maze. The new Aldi looks modern and colorful.

The layout was more open and the navigation was customizable. It was easy to bypass one busy aisle for a less crowded one and head back later. The carts are bigger but still require a .25 cent deposit. 🙂

Aldi Grand Opening
Open aisles at my new Aldi

At the grand opening, they were giving out large reusable bags at the door. It looked like they had no shortage so even customers near the end of the day could get one. And if you come between noon and 5 PM they gave free samples of their store brand items. Mainly gluten-free, produce, dairy, and meat products.

Aldi Grand Opening
New Aldi bag and cold brew coffee! eee!

Aldi Coupons

Here’s the real reason to shop at Aldi at least once during the opening week: Aldi Coupons. With every purchase during the first week, you’ll get 3 more $5 off $30 coupons that expire in staggering weeks.

So in addition to saving around 50% on traditional grocery store prices, you’ll get $5 off! I broke my grocery haul into 2 trips so I could use my flyer coupon the first round and my first coupon from the pack on my second trip. That way I got another three coupons!

It’s a great method if you can’t make $30 of groceries last a week. There’s only two of us so I used my extra grocery haul to make a bunch of freezer meals. Taking full advantage of all those coupons!

Aldi Grand Opening
Aldi coupons for weekz!

And once you’re finished shopping you can put your name in a drawing to win free produce for a year in the form of an Aldi gift card. I think it was $10-$14 per week for 52 weeks so about $600.  I’d take it!

There’s so much more to come with Aldi and if you’ve been skeptical or disliked it in the past you’ll appreciate all the things they’re doing. They’re improving customer’s shopping experience while staying true to its goal: saving people money.

I’ve personally experienced a total transformation in the way I grocery shop because of Aldi. It saved our budget. That combined with learning the psychology behind why I thought I needed to spend so much in the first place was life-changing.

If you’re looking at Aldi to save money on groceries then you might as well go further and refine your meal plans, meal prep, and stockpiling (for non-hoarders.) I love how Erin Chase teaches it with her Grocery Budget Makeover. It doesn’t take 20 hours of couponing to save money, it just takes a few new tips and methods to get the most bang for your buck.

Do you love Aldi as much as I do? Maybe even more than I do? Let me know in the comments! and tag me in your grand opening pictures on Instagram @savingwithspunk!

I love Aldi shopping and I had no clue all the Aldi secret cool stuff you can get at a grand opening!

This Post Has 22 Comments

  1. I LOVE Aldi! We have a few here in Central Florida – and it’s the only place we shop! Granted, they don’t have evvvverything we need all the time, but the necessities food wise for sure! I was wondering – HOW did you get coupons from them?

  4. I went to our Aldi grand opening and loved it. Got a free bag, got a gift certificate for $10 off and loved those coupons they offered for a little while. I really like Aldi and love their prices and all their great products.

  5. I have a “new” Aldi about 5 minutes from my house, too! It sure beats driving across town to go to one.

  7. I have been wanting this store in my area. I hope that one of those locations include my hometown =)

    Lydia | chicandmodish.com

  8. Oh, I love Aldi! There’s one opening down the road from my house. I’ll be watching my mail for that flier. Thanks for the tip. 🙂

  9. Aldi is probably my favorite grocery store too, altho there are a few brands that I have to get from another store, I get 80 percent of our groceries from Aldi. I did see the cold brew coffee but didn’t get it yet. How did you like it? Yeah for their redesign, because it does feel a little more upscale than their original warehouse design. 🙂

    1. Same. I try to just nix things I can’t get at Aldi but I do have to go elsewhere about once a month. I swear by their cold brew. I’m going to get more today if they have it!

  10. Aldi had a Grand Opening today (8/31/2017) at St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville, Florida. I’m a huge Aldi fan, so I had this date starred on my calendar. Aldi stores normally open at 9:00 so I was there at 7:45 a.m. There were about 15 people already in line. As we waited in the hot sun, more people arrived – almost exclusively line-crashers joining friends already in line. Between 7:45 and 8:25, only about 10 people lined up behind me.

    No one had carts. I wondered what would happen since that seemingly was not being pre-arranged. Eventually, finally, people did start to think about carts. Everyone got one and reformed their place in line.

    I learned from another person in line that they had a soft opening yesterday. No specials (other than the normal) or coupons, but the store was open for business and he had received a free shopping bag.

    I had received a $5 off $30 purchase in the mail the week before. It was a single, oversized postcard type mailer with the coupon printed on the back and the coupon is good for three weeks.

    Yesterday, an Aldi’s paper flyer came in our Wednesday Redplum mailer. It has the same $5 off $30 coupon but only good for one week.

    At 8:25, all of the staff and Aldi reps came outside, thanked the (small) crowd for coming, took photos and did a ribbon cutting. At 8:30, they opened the store, which was very nice since we were waiting in a very hot sun!

    As we filed in, a store rep gave each person a 3-part set of coupons – the same one pictured above – $5 off a $30 purchase, good for one week for the next three weeks. Another store rep gave each person one Aldi shopping bag. And that was it! No in-store specials other than the regular ones advertised for all of the Jacksonville stores this week. No gift cards. There were none of the white envelopes holding random-amount gift cards that I had read about, distributed at other Aldi Grand Openings. Nope. No food stations, either, handing out samples. No drawing for free produce for a year (or anything else). Nothing to write home about in the giveaway department. So that part was a little disappointing.

    The store is big and much improved from our other Aldi’s – produce was beautiful – more staff than I’ll *ever* see in there again at one time… The store had been nicely done and since it is much closer to me than the other Jacksonville location, I will be a regular. I do 100% of my grocery shopping at Aldi’s so this was still an exciting day!

    1. Thank you so much for this timeline Carol! They did it the same way here in St. Pete so this is very indicative of what people can expect!

  11. I love Aldi, I started shopping at Aldi in Grand Rapids and bringing groceries back to Traverse City. Finally in 2012 we got one in Traverse City. I was at the grand opening and I was sooo happy we finally had our own Aldi. I will be at the Grand Reopening this time too, counting the days until July 28th.
    Very excited, I tell people all the time about the Aldi store because I’m in love with Aldi stores.

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