I don’t agree with this entirely, as there are some people that are rude under any circumstances.
Switching gears, and back to the topic of Whole Foods, it would be great if they opened at 7:00 AM in the east coast, instead of 8:00 AM.
Because the aisle is completely full of oblivious people and their carelessly placed carts, leaving no way to push through.
I agree that there’s something off with respect to the size of the aisles in Whole Foods relative to people being completely fucking clueless with blocking them. I don’t know if the aisles in Whole Foods are less wide than in Safeway or whatever, or if the shoppers are a thousand times more clueless. This is absolutely the number one reason why I try to avoid shopping at Whole Foods – it’s just too damn difficult to get around the stores. Even Trader Joes, which tend to be even more packed, seems easier to get from one section to another.
Solution for an aversion to Whole Foods (and much better selection): Wegman’s (maybe coming to a place near you … someday).
Thing is, in a lot of places, WF is merely an upscale grocery, and their method of differentiation is through the woo, organic stuff, silly banned ingredients, and general crunchy, hippie feel. So you get a different crowd at the Whole Foods locations in the Dallas area vs. the HEB Central Market locations, which are just as upscale, but whose emphasis is on more foodie/gourmand ingredients and products, and not on their provenance. They do stock a lot of organic stuff, but it’s not their stock-in-trade.
And… in most cases, they’re not that far apart, so the decision to go to one or the other is likely based on whether you like the product mix and the crowd, and the WF crowd seems more judgmental to me, because they’re patronizing a store based on inherently judgey factors.
Well how precious of California.
Having lived in Austin for several years, I’m pleased to see this report.
It’s all well and good to riff on “rich, white person problems” or other caricatures of elitism, but I’ve witnessed the sorts of behaviors under discussion here elsewhere.
For every graying hippy berating someone over GMOs in the middle of an aisle at Whole Foods, there’s a “Mama June” over at the local Walmart loading up on Mountain Dew and Double Stuf Oreos while clogging the aisle with her braying, prediabetic hoard of kids. And for every Prius demanding Tibetan freedom while silently stalking the Whole Foods parking lot, there’s a rust bucket motor home adorned with NRA stickers haphazardly stretched across six spaces over at Walmart.
Everyone acts abhorrently from time to time- socioeconomic classifications notwithstanding- and there will be always be someone with less who assumes you’re a rich douche. And, similarly, there there will always be someone with more who groans because you’re so woefully unenlightened. Dollar Store Joe probably resents those Walmart Fat Cats and the Mitt Romneys of the world would probably rather drink tap water(!) than send a servant to such a lowly place as Whole Foods.
Anyway:
If you “shop around the outside edge of the store” (i.e. just buying meat and produce while eschewing prepared/boxed foods) and can comfortably foot the bill, Whole Foods is as good a place as any and better than most.
We used to shop at Whole Foods quite often. I found the people there to be pretty much the same as people are literally everywhere else, and the prices higher than the ‘normal’ supermarket in the same way that the prices at Nordstrom are higher than those at Wal-Mart: better quality goods. Yes, grass-fed beef is costlier than beef from stockyard cattle, and organic tomato sauce is pricier than generic store-brand…but if you compare like for like, there’s little to no difference in price, in my experience.
We don’t shop at Whole Foods anymore because it’s way across town and requires an otherwise completely out-of-the-way trip to do so…we’ve started doing our shopping at either the local Natural Foods Co-op downtown, or the Mexican Grocery a couple miles away, or the Supermarket just down the street, depending on what we’re buying on any given day.
The Tenleytown one has a great beer department, which is pretty much the only reason I go there. I worked at a school not far away, and the sense of entitlement I encountered there was certainly different that what I see in my neighborhood, and even among the parents of the kids at the Capitol Hill school where I work now. The one in Silver Spring is populated by regular people, but I’m not exactly unbiased since my family shops there every week. Probably Whole Foods reflect the community where they’re located.
There’s actually another location on S. Lamar now- a few blocks north of Ben White in the shopping center with Harbor Freight.
I don’t know if the original moved, or if this is an additional location though. Sure does have a big spiffy neon sign though.
It’s funny that you mention the Tenleytown store, my wife and I really hate that one. It’s almost like a parody of itself. We prefer the Friendship Heights store, which has an amazingly fast checkout system.
The Alexandria store is similar. The Foggy Bottom location is decent, even if it feels more like a food court than a grocery store.
I like the Friedship Heights store because we can swing by on our way home from work and grab dinner at Mei Wah across the street and sometimes go to a movie at Mazaz Gallery for the yuppie tri fecta.
Or science, or reality.
Edit: This hypocritical hippie girl is the poster-child for Whole Foods, I’m guessing.
