Sites of Cincinnati #3

It's time for another installment of Sites of Cincinnati!

Sites of Cincinnati #3:
Jungle Jim's

Exit I-275 and go North on Route 4 to get to one of the coolest places in Cincinnati:  Jungle Jim's!  You don't need better directions than that, by the way, because you CAN'T MISS IT.  Really.  You turn into the parking lot on Jungle Jim Parkway, with its own stoplight, and there's a freakin' monorail circling the building.  The building itself is a mega-building.  It's unlike anything else you've ever seen.

As you walk into this mega-building, there are elephants and giraffes to great you, all lolling around in a pool, complete with a waterfall.  Even though they're just statues, they're freakin' cool!  Take a gander at this image I just stole from someone else's blog:

What is this fantastical place? 

It's a grocery store.

Best. Grocery. Store. Ever.

And Jim is crazy.  Yes, there actually is a Jungle Jim, and you can learn all about him and his story in a movie that they play in the movie theater in the back.  Runs every 10 minutes or so.  Before you can get to there, though, you have to pass all the gift shops, the coffee shop, and the doctor's office.  All INSIDE the store.

And watch for the decorations along the way.  You can see King Kong scaling the Empire State Building; the Lucky Charms guy leading a band of other cereal super stars, churning out Beach Boys tunes; Robin Hood and the gang in Sherwood Forest; a bear Elvis who shakes and shimmies as he sings the King's hits; and I'm probably forgetting a few.  Oh, and who can't love these bathrooms?  Voted #1 in America.



The reason you go to Jungle Jim's, besides the fun factor, is to get the international foods.  They sell just about anything and everything there.  I haven't actually identified all the foods in the produce section, but if you want it, and it's international and hard-to-find, Jungle Jim's has it.  If they don't have it, you can put in a request for it.  They have official forms and everything. 

I go there to get Hello Panda cookies from the Asian section, chocolate spread that's better than Nutella (seriously, after trying it, there's no going back), really good foreign chocolates, and any number of fun things from the German section.  ...  Only I don't go there too often, because I inevitably spend $100 on stuff that I don't "need" but that is SO YUMMY.  Seriously, I usually clean out the Hello Panda rack.  I ran out in October, so it's probably about time to go back.

So while it may not seem like the coolest thing ever to go to a grocery store, it's pretty sweet.  Definitely worth the trip.

Check out the store's website here.