How to Orange County (How to OC) is a new series for residents & guests, by residents & guests, to show the best places to optimize their time out in the county to eat, shop, play, live and visit the county. Whether you are visiting for the first time or your hundredth time to the county, life long resident or a recent transplant, How to OC is for everyone. The name of the series is inspired by KPCC & LAist’s How to LA.
If you visit or live in Orange County and have any questions or suggestions, email me at AntSolTravel@gmail.com. I should probably get my own email domain someday.
If you are new here, welcome, I am Anthony Solhtalab, or AntSol for short. Welcome to my travel guide blog & YouTube channel, AntSol Travel, for guests of the Anaheim Resort area & Orange County about destinations, events, and transportation. I was originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and loved the area so much over the last 26 years, then moved to Anaheim over a year ago with my sister. I run most of the errands since I work weekends and three weekdays as hotel guest services, so I leverage my days off during the week for shorter lines at the stores. I will use my knowledge of the area to help you and the guests I work with, plan errands while here in Orange County.
This is the most buzzwordy title I can think of since this is the best place to shop for groceries outside of the Anaheim Resort & Anaheim Platnium Tringle sports venues, in Orange.
At the Garden Grove Target, they have a hard time keeping food items in stock as this location gets the locals, but also the Anaheim Resort guests as several full-service hotels are at the intersection. Since there are over 100 hotels with approximately 24,000 rooms in the Anaheim Resort area, many guests converge on the area during weekends, summertime, and huge conferences & conventions, which is most of the time.
Want to get groceries at a store that is not overrun by Anaheim Resort guests, Ralphs at Main Street and West Chapman is a great option as it caters mostly to local residents and Chapman University students that have classes down the street. It is located 3.6 miles via taking I-5 and exiting Chapman Avenue.
Ralphs is part of Kroger, which also owns 17 grocery store brands such as Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, and more. Make sure to sign up for their free membership program to get store discounts and fuel rewards for discounted gas at their gas station down Chapman. If you are already a member, just enter your phone number at checkout to get the discounts and gas points. They have a bakery & deli counter to sell freshly prepared food for healthier dinner options such as sandwiches, chicken fingers, chicken wings, soups, and more.
Please note this location is on the smaller side so the grocery store aisle is narrow, only having room for two shopping carts passing each other. However, they do have everything you need in a grocery store and you won’t have to scrape the back of the shelf to get a fresh food item, which was an issue I had at Target as most food items are gone in a blink of an eye.
This location does not have a pharmacy, however, they do have most over-the-counter medicines. Caddy corner of Chapman & Main is a Walgreens Community Pharmacy if guests did just need a one-off perception fill only.
You can order online for pick up in-store or brought over to your car in the parking lot.
At the store, I needed to get items for dinner to make for the week since I make dinner for my sister & me. Ralph’s has a huge selection of freshly butchered beef, chicken, & pork, and fresh seafood. Tonight’s dinner was hamburgers, so I got fresh beef for hamburgers. Then I tried to get hamburger buns, however, there were too many people in the aisle, thankfully, there are bread by the bakery case and I got Kings Hawaiian pretzel buns. They also have La Brea bread as well, which recently closed its Downtown Disney & Downtown Los Angeles cafe locations to focus on its bread in the store, you can check to see if they sell it at your local SoCal store here.
With my main dinner ingredients completed, I got additional items needed such as yogurt, coffee, butter, bananas, salad, frozen French fries, and more without issue.
At home, I cooked the hamburger patties on the electric grill, buttered & toasted the hamburger buns in the toaster, put the frozen French fries in the oven, and tossed the salad. Everything was good and healthier for the most part, my sister and I were happy and full.
I love the location of the Ralph’s since it is out of the way for most guests who don’t venture out this far to get needed groceries, yet only a few miles away from Disneyland, and mostly has everything you need in a grocery. Just that the store is on the smaller side, so be mindful of customers on where you park your shopping cart to get an item.
AntSol Travel 