Students looking to shop for necessities ranging from toothpaste to candy to medicine have plenty of local stores to choose from. Within 0.3 miles of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, there are four convenience stores: the University-run Gourmet to Go in the campus center itself, CVS on the corner of Thayer and Cushing streets, Metro Mart on Thayer Street and Harry’s Smokeshop on Waterman Street.
The Herald compared the prices of a few popular items and spoke to students and store spokespeople about pricing.
The Herald compared the price of eggs, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Celsius energy drinks, Crest toothpaste, Murchan ramen and Advil between the four stores. Across the four stores, Gourmet to Go had the highest average prices, while CVS offered the lowest average prices.
Five ounces of Crest toothpaste at Gourmet to Go is $4 more expensive than all other available options. The store is also tied with CVS for the most expensive egg prices.
“We primarily follow the suggested retail pricing structure established by our broadline supplier,” Vice President of Dining Services George Barboza wrote in an email to The Herald. “This is an average price structure determined by production/operational costs, cost of goods, market value and consumer demand.”
The prices for Ben & Jerry’s, Celsius and Advil were the lowest at CVS, whereas Metro Mart had the lowest price for ramen and eggs.
Metro Mart — which ranked as the second cheapest option overall — considers the prices of nearby competitors like CVS and Harry’s when pricing its own inventory, but also has to take its “very high” rent into consideration, said Suraj Pudasaini, manager of Metro Mart.
Pudasaini estimates that around 80% of the store’s customer base are students. During breaks between semesters, the store sees a drop in sales of more than 50%, he added.
Four blocks up Thayer Street, CVS strives “to offer competitive prices for the products we sell and regularly monitor the prices other retailers charge to remain competitive in a market,” CVS spokesperson Shannon Dillon wrote in an email to The Herald.
“To maintain value, we strive to offer similar product categories of nearby stores,” Barboza wrote of Gourmet to Go.
Metro Mart’s prices regularly fluctuate. Egg prices at the store are reevaluated about every two weeks depending on the prices when new inventory comes in, Pudasaini said. The shop buys its eggs from a nearby grocery store, and since they are a regular daily item, they “want to make sure that our customers are not overpaying,” he added.
Will Thomas ’28 chooses CVS when buying Celsius, toothpaste and Advil because “CVS has the deals,” he said. But when shopping for ramen, he chooses Metro Mart because there is more variety to choose from.
Pudasaini is negotiating with his vendor to bring the price of Celsius down by 20 to 30 cents in the coming weeks, he said. The energy drink is Metro Mart’s “hottest item” so the store is trying to make sure its customers are getting a “reasonable price compared to competitors,” he said. Coca Cola also recently lowered the price of its Monster Energy drink and the store wants to price match similar items, Pudasaini added.
Thomas occasionally strays away from Metro Mart, Gourmet to Go and CVS to buy specialty foods from Fox Point Grocers. He shops there because he enjoys supporting small businesses, “but it’s really expensive so I buy one or two things at a time,” he said.
Similarly, Minne Hatchuel ’27 shops at Metro Mart when she “just needs one missing ingredient for a recipe,” she wrote in a message to The Herald. Otherwise, she said she avoids doing any grocery shopping there because it’s “expensive and they barely have any fresh produce.”
CVS was the “go-to” convenience store for Thomas when he lived on North Campus, he said. But now that he lives closer to Metro Mart, he usually chooses that “for convenience.” In fact, Thomas’s purchasing decisions are largely influenced by convenience because “everything is kind of on the same level” in terms of price, he said.
Gourmet to Go is “the most convenient of them all,” Thomas said, adding that he likes that he can use his Flex Points at the on-campus shop. But this year, he used up his points, so he hasn’t frequented the store as much. Thomas was “not familiar” with Harry’s.
Maya Kelly is a senior staff writer from Providence who covers business and development. A concentrator in urban studies and data fluency, she is passionate about intersecting storytelling with data analysis. When Maya's not at The Herald, you can find her hanging from an aerial silk, bullet journaling or in the middle of a forest.
