This is Sacramento’s most visited grocery store. It might not be what you think

Costco was Sacramento’s most-visited grocery store from 2021 to 2022, after the much larger superstore, Walmart, according to interactive points of interest data.

But in a Sacramento Bee poll ran last week — it wasn’t crowned the best, according to readers.

Raley’s, which won nearly half of the more than 1,800 votes, had less foot traffic than Safeway and its counterpart Bel Air and more than Nuggets Market, another reader-favorite.

Costco ranked fifth in the poll, but consistently received more foot traffic than any of the other Bee readers’ top chains between January 2021 to January 2022, according to data collected by Safe Graph.

And in December 2021, the number of visits to Costco spiked to more than 28,000 before returning back to around 12,000 in January. This trend was seen across chains and in area restaurant and bar foot traffic, coinciding with the spike in COVID-19 omicron cases at the turn of the new year.

And although Raley’s, Nugget Markets and Trader Joe’s ranked high in the poll, they received the least amount of foot traffic compared to readers’ other top chains.

The data used in this interactive line graph, collected by Safe Graph, was last updated February 2022. According to the visualization, a visit is defined as staying at the location for more than four minutes. You can filter for California grocery stores and compare: