I don't currently have any ethnic grocery stores near me, but when I did, the Mexican ones always had chicken thighs for cheap, and also limes.
Like, the regular grocery store might have limes at $0.50 each (in the midwest), while the ethnic store would have 10/$1.00. (pre-covid, pre-inflation prices.)
And there was this Ukrainian place where, from the deli, they would sell in trays a mix of the butt ends of the deli meats and cheeses. They'd label it by weight some bulk price that was often cheaper than some of the meats or cheeses contained in it.
It was like being able to get a cheap meat/cheese sampler tray. So there'd be chunks of salami, turkey, olive loaf--or swiss, american, munster...just whatever meats or cheeses they got to the ends of recently.
At an Asian place I used to go to, I could get tilapia, basa, or swai in frozen fillets for cheap. I actually liked the basa and swai--they're basically farmed asian catfish, but can't be labeled catfish as a way to protect the north american catfish industry. I can see why they wanted to prevent competition--I find that basa and swai don't have the "muck" taste that local catfish have.
Anyway, what are some good deals you have been able to find at local ethnic grocery stores?
Spices are way better deals at ethnic grocery stores. You can pay Mcornik $13 at my local Albertsons for a small bottle of cardamom pods, or hop over to an Indian market and pay $10 for a roughly sandwich size zip lock bag stuffed with them.