Mariano’s: A Sweet Customer Appreciation Celebration

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias®  and Mariano’s. #MyMarianos #cbias

After taking an extended break, I decided to start scheduling cooking and baking days with the kids again. I’m trying to fit a little a more fun into this summer before it’s over and we get back to a more stringent school schedule.

Fruit Pizzas
Breanna’s cooking day was this past weekend, and I had pre-scheduled a day for us to get together and make sugar cookie fruit pizzas. Drool. They turned out wonderfully and were eaten up in a single day. I’m going to share the recipe with you in another post that’ll be coming soon.

Shopping at Mariano’s
To create the fruit pizzas, we needed fresh ingredients and went to Mariano’s to pick up the kiwis, blueberries, and strawberries to top our pizzas with. I was headed to Mariano’s anyway for the Customer Appreciation Celebration that was kicking off at their Arlington Heights store this past weekend. (I think it’s pretty wonderful that Mariano’s celebrates its customers.)

DID YOU KNOW? The first Mariano’s was opened in Hoffman Estates in 2010. This is where the anniversary celebration stems from.

Customer Appreciation Celebration – What You Need to Know
While my husband, the chief grocery shopper in our home, went to pick up everything on our grocery list, I scoped out exactly how Mariano’s was rewarding their customers during this event.

First of all, there was cake. 🙂

Secondly, this much loved Chicago based grocery store is giving away a car!

That’s right, during the Live Well Sweepstakes, each time you checkout with your Mariano’s rewards card, you’ll get an entry into the sweepstakes.

Prizes include:

• Fiat 500 Pop
• Luxury Italian Vacation
• Free groceries
• Ravinia Gala Experience
• Bikes
• Lollapalooza Tickets
• Guitar autographed by the group Train

That’s Not All
Customers will earn 1% cash back on Mariano’s purchases from now through October 19, 2013, and I like how you can track your spending on your receipt as you earn rewards.

Customer Appreciation Contest
Finally, you can enter the Share a Taste of Mariano’s Contest on their Facebook page.

You simply upload a photo of your food creation from Mariano’s for your chance to win a cooking experience and dinner for 10 with a Mariano’s Tastemaker Chef! The top vote-getting photo will win. Six additional winners will win a $25 Mariano’s gift card!

Appreciating Mariano’s
I’m not kidding when I say that everyone I meet, who shops at Mariano’s, truly loves it, and I love that Mariano’s loves their customers right back. I can’t wait to share the sugar cookie fruit pizza recipe with you. The fresh fruit we brought home from Mariano’s definitely made this dessert even better.

Do you shop at Mariano’s? Have you every made fruit pizzas for your family?

Did you know? You can find great recipes and ideas from the Mariano’s Community. And you can follow Mariano’s on Facebook and Twitter for their latest updates. You can also find out more about my shopping trip to Mariano’s here in my Google+ story.