Elrod’s Cost Plus Supermarket

This medium sized, old school Arlington grocery store that caters to the nearby Hispanic community is an undiscovered treasure for bargain shoppers.
You know when you’re on a road trip, driving through some small town, and you have to have a bag of chips and an energy drink? So you pull in the local generic grocery store and wander around, experiencing grocery stores the way they used to be before The Walmart Supercenter and super targets of the world turned grocery shopping into a hi-​def distance workout. That’s what Elrod’s Cost Plus feels like inside.
Produce is fresh, inventory solid, and they have a wide selection of fruity Mexican soft drinks, which I happen to really like. Some things they carry are unexpected, like a section on «religious candles». you won’t find every variety of Oreo cookie, and all the latest flavors of Lays here necessarily. But dang, who needs all that crap anyway?
The oddest part about the experience is the way the checkout line works. I don’t really know how to describe this with verbiage, but you dump all your items on the counter next to check-​out person, then walk around the front to pay. I did it wrong the first two times I came here and was all «uhhhh, where does my stuff go?»
For some reason the UTA area is a dead spot when it comes to grocery stores. I have both lived and worked in this area and found Elrods Cost Plus to be a rock star among single-​owner grocery stores. It’s well-​stocked, and I’ve never come here looking for an item that they didn’t have, except wine. Recommended!