Let's Go Grocery Shopping "Hypermarkets"

For those of you in Jeddah or Mecca you are probably familiar with Danube. It is new to us here in Riyadh. If you have ever made hajj or Umrah you may have shopped at Bin Dawoods. Well Danube and Bin Dawoods are sister companies.

Check this out for more info about the Danube hypermarket here in Riyadh: http://www.foodinternational.net/articles/retail-profile/1058/danube-riyadh-saudi-arabia.html

Here are a few of the 'Hypermarkets'. They are sorta like attaching a mall to Walmart and then adding an international influence to it. Oh, yeah and don't forget to shut it down for the prayer times.
Can you imagine the riots it would cause if in the US someone said the stores had to close for prayer? So during the prayer time ALL the shops close their doors and all malls have prayer areas and most of them are quite spacious and very comfortable prayer areas. I estimate there are about 1500 to 2000 brothers for evening and night prayers in most of the various malls.









Below are shots from our neighborhood of the Granada Mall across the highway. There is a humongous Carrfour grocery store or hypermarket inside along with stores such as MAC (high-end make-up), Debenhams (a British retailer), Athletes Foot, Columbia, Timberland, Early learning Center (ELC), Levis, and a food court to satisfy any taste....Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Steakhouse, Sbarros, McDs, Churches oh I mean Texas Chicken, a variety of Asian, Indian, and Arab cuisines. and others.

Warning: Proceed with caution, however. Do not try to enter this mall wearing a house thobe. Trust me!
I once had my sons and three of their friends and tried to enter with a short sleeve thobe.
Yes, it was clean and pressed the whole nine. However, they are considered 'house thobes' for a reason. Culturally it is taboo to be out and about in one. So the guard stopped me and the boys and told me "mamnu3' ". I said "what" (in my broken Arabic). He replied, "thobe mamnu3'
".
He almost started blushing. He looked like a brother practicing the Sunnah and he began to apologize and explain that this was the speech of the administration. From that point on I don't wear my house thobe there and he always greets me with a very big smile when we see each other.

By the way there is normally a guard on each and every gate keeping the shabab (single young males) out of the mall.

Whole foods, low fat and organic products are available. Brown rice, tofu and turbinado are all here, walhumdulillah. One popular store with western products is Tamimis (Safeway) it is also located in the UAE. They have several branches here in Riyadh. Some of their products are air shipped from the US.

Note: The grits do go fast. I know one brother that admits calling the manager and asking if the latest shipment contained grits and then purchasing an entire case.

There are also organic markets/shops here. Carrfour (French), Panda (Local), Geant (French) Sadhan (local) and Danube (local) are all big "hypermarkets" usually located in malls.