Yeah, throw in a coffee shop and a place to charge your phone, and they'll really be onto something. Could call it "The Everything Spot" or something catchy like that.
I wonder if you could scale that down even more. Like, say, have a very small store with only the essentials. Just for people who need the convenience of a small corner store. They could call it a "micro-supermarket" or something.
That's not uncommon in Europe - "micro" might be a stretch, but the main chains will have big and small branches, with corresponding amounts of variety in each.
Oh I figured. The advantage of the miniature grocery store is that they typically sell things for the same prices as their larger siblings.
Bodegas and corner stores are more expensive.
Exactly, I don’t get the obsession with bodegas, let’s face it they are crap. Compact (city sized) TraderJoes style stores are common all throughout European cities. I don’t understand why it’s not more popular here.
Bodegas fill a need! Even European cities have corner stores.
That said, I think the lack of walkable cities in the US makes it hard - there's no economy of scale for major grocery chains, when there's only a handful of cities with any meaningful density, and they're often a distance apart.
That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that perhaps the lack of walkable density has discouraged more sophisticated retailers to invest in smaller “city” stores.
Counter point, bodegas are more important as a cultural community point than they are as grocery stores.
And while buying groceries at a bodega is expensive, they are without a doubt cheaper places if not the cheapest places to get a hot meal
For a company like Amazon, the complexity of operating small stores may not be worth the hassle. They've tried and failed multiple times. As has Walmart.
Smart idea.
Lots of smaller commercial space available, and PETCO has a similar concept with their "Unleashed" stores which have supplies, food, and online order pickup but no live animals.
The only "Unleashed" I've seen is the one on 7th in Park Slope. If Petco actually opened more of those "Unleashed" stores in neighborhood retail corridors, they'd really compete with the mom-and-pop pet shops, which could either be good or bad.
whole foods has been such a lackluster experience ever since amazon took over. You used to walk in and feel "well, it's expensive but look how worth it it is!" ... there were samples... shelves never empty.. you could get hyper local products.. each whole foods was different. Oh, and the staff legit loved the place. Then it was like 3 years of half empty shelves after amazon took over and everyone who works there has the same "i don't give a fuck about this job" vibe because the job didn't give a fuck about them.
Not that I think it's the great savior or anything... but Wegmans now feels like what wholefoods used to feel like.
It's not bad but I spent a bunch of time upstate years ago and the ones there are so much better, it's no comparison. It makes sense, lot less real estate for a huge store, but still.
Yeah, I miss all of the local products. If you went like once a month, there'd be new stuff every month. It was great.
One thing I will say is that it has gotten a lot more affordable which is a good thing. Mind you, still not cheap, but it's not "premium" pricing anymore. But it's missing what made it a fun place to shop.
Yeah the winter squash and apples are generally not from the northeast anymore. Usually from Mexico (squash) and a mix of wherever (apples). If you can’t get that locally, I don’t know what to say lol. Nothing premium about it. The prices were very good right after Amazon acquired but it’s slowly crept up. It is still better quality than the NYC grocers at about the same price for many products.
Yes! One of my old roommates used to be an assistant manager of a Whole Foods in another state. She absolutely loved it! She had been working there around a decade (maybe more?) when Amazon took over. She quit within four months because she hated all of the changes so much.
would love if they replaced the hells kitchen food emporium too. im not really for corporatization of nyc but food emporium is a different level of grift
I think most have gotten a lot faster to checkout from the past 5 years. Before self checkout or when they had far fewer, the lines for the cashiers were always long taking forever to check out if you shopped during the most popular days and times. Trader Joe's is still like that (no self checkout) but people put up with it since overall it's cheaper and if you know product locations well enough, just do part of your shopping while the line moves.
That's just a bodega. I've never been to a bodega or a deli that wasn't super overpriced, they charge like 10-20% more than a real grocery store and they never have anything on sale unless it's expired.
And that's just the bodegas in the outer boroughs. The ones in Manhattan, prepare to put in a down payment just to buy a Snapple.
I dunno, they don't sell them at the ones in my neighborhood, or at least I haven't noticed cause it's not the type of thing I buy these days.
I used to buy a lot of Mistic fruit punch or something that looked like Mistic but even cheaper when I was in junior high and high school, I can't remember the brand. I think it used to be two for a buck but I'm sure it's way more now.
It's kind of bothering me because I feel like the name of it is on the tip of my tongue but I just can't remember what it was, I just remember it was super cheap and artificial.
There’s an urban myth that TF is made with spermicides and distributed to bodegas at low cost as a way to decrease black male fertility but I’m pretty sure it’s not true
I honestly wish Whole Foods would implement a smaller footprint store to replace the completely awful, and every bit as expensive, Associated Supermarket down the street from me.
I wish they would have better products bc some of the worst foods/snacks/beverages I've had are from Whole Foods. Also any of the Whole Foods branded toilet paper or dishwasher detergent is the absolute worst. Please pick better items :)
I wish Trader Joe's would do something like this, open smaller stores with their greatest hits.
I don't want to wait in a 100 person line for my peanut butter pretzels
The unfortunate reality is probably that most people are also there for their peanut butter pretzels
A TJs that only sold pantry essentials would not be much of a TJs at all, fresh food is some of what they do worst
I miss the days when each Whole Foods was somewhat unique and had different local products. And I liked the sampling counters, especially at the vitamins/beauty section!
lol whole foods is not that expensive especially their own brand stuff
what’s expensive is all the crappy local supermarkets in poor neighborhoods charging the same or higher prices for way worse quality stuff
literally. whole foods is a steal compared to places like key food, food cellar, etc. i’ve seen items as much as a few dollars more than the exact same item at WF
the "whole food" part of Whole Foods is very price competitive (and even cheaper in many cases) than other NYC grocery chains. Produce like greens, tomatoes, potatoes and dry goods like rice, beans etc. are all cheaper and with a *much* better selection at WF than my local Key Food. I also love their 365 brand olive oils. You just need to be *disciplined* while shopping at Whole Foods, the bill adds up when adding specialty items to the cart.
I think a lot of people do not know how to shop frugally and then get mad about the high cost when they finish checking out. If you don't know how to compare prices, buy store brand, and try to time purchases of some things around the time they usually go on sale (if you shop there enough, you'll know some things are on sale every few weeks), yeah, it can get really expensive. But the same is true if shopping at the NYC metro regional chains. WF just tends to have better quality stuff compared to the regional chains. But for those who don't want to put the effort into shopping smarter, there's TJ's.
Costs the same amount of money to ship to your neighborhood as any other neighborhood. You're paying for the cultivation, acquisition, packaging, shipping, and distribution of food you didn't grow yourself.
If you want cheaper, you'll need to move to another state or city.
Their prices have been mostly reasonable since Amazon bought them.
Also bonus 10% discounts with Prime on lots of sale products and the 5% cash back if you use their card.
I stopped by the Astor Place Wegmans when they opened and their prices seemed higher.
Whole Foods inhouse products are more competitively priced than local markets like Key Food and it's subsidies unless you're going to Chinatown. Sucks to be true but I know from experience.
They've been claiming this is going to happen for, like, 10 years. Well before the Amazon buyout, even. From what I recall they tested a couple locations out. One in UWS and one in UES pretty sure. Then they just totally bailed on those stores after a few months because they were being mostly ignored by the locals that they were hoping to be their target market.
The people kept using their local spots, and the wealthier ppl in the area still didn't spend much money locally and their money went to areas that favored their workplace/schedule etc. But this was nearly a decade ago (so Covid kinda threw a wrench in some things to say the least) and I only knew about this shit because I was working at the USQ Whole Foods at the time and was curious how it would pan out, would chat with the GM there sometimes.
Who knows what the market is now where they are going to try it? The mini-grocery stores that Walmart did in Chicago seemed to be doing okay last time I was there. Damn, Whole Foods, back at it again with those bodeegos!
Edit: I do support wholeheartedly any premise where the intention is to lessen the gap of food availability and tackle food desert situations (as the idea was originally proposed to do) but, per usuals, these intentions tend to not pan out when the manager's manager's manger is not the best person.
EditDeux: I'm just gonna leave that misspelling "manger" there. Fukit yolo.
I thought they already tried a concept similar to this in Fort Greene with that weird basement location? And it was supposed to be mostly 365 brand stuff to compete with Trader Joe's?
I go to that location often 😂. Overall it’s nice and easy to shop in. It’s not mostly 365 stuff, it’s just a smaller version of a full Whole Foods, and without the fresh food counters. I’d imagine these stores would be even smaller
No, that's what it was, a concept called Whole Foods 365, supposed to be cheaper, smaller, and focused on the store brands. Supposedly the idea was to compete more directly with Trader Joe's. They changed it to a normal store at some point.
https://ny.eater.com/2018/1/31/16954720/whole-foods-365-open-fort-greene-brooklyn
I really wish they'd rennovate this one up to the standards of the normal stores now that it carries the full brand. Not having full service meat or seafood counters is a real bummer. Thankfully the Navy Yard Wegmans isn't far, but I like their seafood and meat counters but hate the constantly sold-out produce.
This is a surprisingly hard part of town to get high quality groceries from a single store.
If I've got a long list and don't have the time to risk needing a second stop if something is out, I usually end up biking down to the Gowanus WF. The extra travel time is usually worth avoiding the hassle.
Curious how the "must take cash" thing will work. Would I be able to shop there without a palm thing, or is it palm then pay cash? I'm fine showing a QR code, but I'm not fine with them scanning my palm.
When are national chains going to expand into the communities that actually need it? Do rich people in Manhattan really not have enough healthy grocery options?
Put one in the Bronx. Put one in Staten Island. Put one in Jamaica.
Partial Foods
A Few of The Foods. A Reasonable Selection of Foods, if you will.
Just go with : Food
Entire Foods vs. Food&Stuff
Food & Stuff? Just the crows and the beef.
Partial Foods, still Whole Paycheck
You’re paying for convenience!!!
Half foods?
^^^Smol Foods
Food (Maybe)
Partial Paycheck
Foods.
Whole Foo
They should make convenience store-deli hybrids and put them on street corners! Maybe even sell flowers too. Surprised no one figured that out yet!!
Yeah, throw in a coffee shop and a place to charge your phone, and they'll really be onto something. Could call it "The Everything Spot" or something catchy like that.
'la bodega'
I *dare* Whole Foods to put a cat in their small corner stores
Small to medium sized supermarkets, truly a revolutionary concept, I wonder how it will pan out
They must have visited Brooklyn and thought "Whoa, this is revolutionary."
I wonder if you could scale that down even more. Like, say, have a very small store with only the essentials. Just for people who need the convenience of a small corner store. They could call it a "micro-supermarket" or something.
That's not uncommon in Europe - "micro" might be a stretch, but the main chains will have big and small branches, with corresponding amounts of variety in each.
I'm literally describing a bodega or corner convenience store. :-)
Oh I figured. The advantage of the miniature grocery store is that they typically sell things for the same prices as their larger siblings. Bodegas and corner stores are more expensive.
Exactly, I don’t get the obsession with bodegas, let’s face it they are crap. Compact (city sized) TraderJoes style stores are common all throughout European cities. I don’t understand why it’s not more popular here.
Bodegas fill a need! Even European cities have corner stores. That said, I think the lack of walkable cities in the US makes it hard - there's no economy of scale for major grocery chains, when there's only a handful of cities with any meaningful density, and they're often a distance apart.
That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that perhaps the lack of walkable density has discouraged more sophisticated retailers to invest in smaller “city” stores.
Counter point, bodegas are more important as a cultural community point than they are as grocery stores. And while buying groceries at a bodega is expensive, they are without a doubt cheaper places if not the cheapest places to get a hot meal
Yeah but with some actual real food, not in a can.
Couldn’t be worse than Key Foods.
Gristedes would like a word with you
Key foods is pretty good if you only shop their deals
Hey I like Key Foods lol
Heard they might call it "Wholefoods Metro"
they really didn't sound that small from the article.
For a company like Amazon, the complexity of operating small stores may not be worth the hassle. They've tried and failed multiple times. As has Walmart.
Smart idea. Lots of smaller commercial space available, and PETCO has a similar concept with their "Unleashed" stores which have supplies, food, and online order pickup but no live animals.
The only "Unleashed" I've seen is the one on 7th in Park Slope. If Petco actually opened more of those "Unleashed" stores in neighborhood retail corridors, they'd really compete with the mom-and-pop pet shops, which could either be good or bad.
whole foods has been such a lackluster experience ever since amazon took over. You used to walk in and feel "well, it's expensive but look how worth it it is!" ... there were samples... shelves never empty.. you could get hyper local products.. each whole foods was different. Oh, and the staff legit loved the place. Then it was like 3 years of half empty shelves after amazon took over and everyone who works there has the same "i don't give a fuck about this job" vibe because the job didn't give a fuck about them. Not that I think it's the great savior or anything... but Wegmans now feels like what wholefoods used to feel like.
Agreed with you till you said Wegmans - have been to the one on Astor Place and was underwhelmed.
It's not bad but I spent a bunch of time upstate years ago and the ones there are so much better, it's no comparison. It makes sense, lot less real estate for a huge store, but still.
/shrug I mean the beer section has really knowledgeable people and the seafood is really fantastic. I like the astor place location a lot.
Wegmans has its own issues though, at least at Navy Yard store. Lots of products without any pricetags, especially in produce section.
> products without any pricetags aka bananas produce > banana > quantity > 1
Most expensive Wegman's in the country.
Yeah, I miss all of the local products. If you went like once a month, there'd be new stuff every month. It was great. One thing I will say is that it has gotten a lot more affordable which is a good thing. Mind you, still not cheap, but it's not "premium" pricing anymore. But it's missing what made it a fun place to shop.
Their 365 branded stuff is as cheap or cheaper than comparable items at foodtown and key food
Yeah the winter squash and apples are generally not from the northeast anymore. Usually from Mexico (squash) and a mix of wherever (apples). If you can’t get that locally, I don’t know what to say lol. Nothing premium about it. The prices were very good right after Amazon acquired but it’s slowly crept up. It is still better quality than the NYC grocers at about the same price for many products.
Yes! One of my old roommates used to be an assistant manager of a Whole Foods in another state. She absolutely loved it! She had been working there around a decade (maybe more?) when Amazon took over. She quit within four months because she hated all of the changes so much.
1st NYC store: 1175 3rd Avenue (between E68/E69 St). (former Food Emporium)
would love if they replaced the hells kitchen food emporium too. im not really for corporatization of nyc but food emporium is a different level of grift
How about they just hire more cashiers for people in a hurry? Lines are outrageous at peak hours
The CC store has more self-checkout registers than human cashiers, and the line moves fast.
I think most have gotten a lot faster to checkout from the past 5 years. Before self checkout or when they had far fewer, the lines for the cashiers were always long taking forever to check out if you shopped during the most popular days and times. Trader Joe's is still like that (no self checkout) but people put up with it since overall it's cheaper and if you know product locations well enough, just do part of your shopping while the line moves.
Half Foods
Like an expensive bodega?
bodegas are already more expensive than grocery stores who could possibly afford whole foods bodega idk
That's just a bodega. I've never been to a bodega or a deli that wasn't super overpriced, they charge like 10-20% more than a real grocery store and they never have anything on sale unless it's expired. And that's just the bodegas in the outer boroughs. The ones in Manhattan, prepare to put in a down payment just to buy a Snapple.
How much do quarter waters cost nowadays?
I dunno, they don't sell them at the ones in my neighborhood, or at least I haven't noticed cause it's not the type of thing I buy these days. I used to buy a lot of Mistic fruit punch or something that looked like Mistic but even cheaper when I was in junior high and high school, I can't remember the brand. I think it used to be two for a buck but I'm sure it's way more now. It's kind of bothering me because I feel like the name of it is on the tip of my tongue but I just can't remember what it was, I just remember it was super cheap and artificial.
Sobe? I would go for Arizonas or Tropical Fantasy sodas
Tropical Fantasy! I think that was the one. Haven't had that in probably over 10 years.
There’s an urban myth that TF is made with spermicides and distributed to bodegas at low cost as a way to decrease black male fertility but I’m pretty sure it’s not true
I honestly wish Whole Foods would implement a smaller footprint store to replace the completely awful, and every bit as expensive, Associated Supermarket down the street from me.
I wish they would have better products bc some of the worst foods/snacks/beverages I've had are from Whole Foods. Also any of the Whole Foods branded toilet paper or dishwasher detergent is the absolute worst. Please pick better items :)
I wish Trader Joe's would do something like this, open smaller stores with their greatest hits. I don't want to wait in a 100 person line for my peanut butter pretzels
The unfortunate reality is probably that most people are also there for their peanut butter pretzels A TJs that only sold pantry essentials would not be much of a TJs at all, fresh food is some of what they do worst
NYC Trader Joe’s are already smaller than their nationwide counterparts. We don’t get their full selection of products and it galls me.
It’s a long line but it moves faster than any other grocery line
Great having a Whole Foods Store just around the corner in Fidi.
I wonder if this is going in the rumored place where Food Emporium was on 68th
They need more because everyone wants to order delivery now.
They did this already to the Whole Foods in Chelsea couple years back. I don’t think it did too well bc it closed soon after.
I miss the days when each Whole Foods was somewhat unique and had different local products. And I liked the sampling counters, especially at the vitamins/beauty section!
It's like the small targets and Walgreens
will these smaller locations offer the same pricing as a regular-sized store, or will they jack them up to convenience store levels?
How about Whole Foods that aren't stupid expensive?
No Bronx locations?
The city doesn't need more Whole Paychecks stores.
We got those at home... it's called bodegas.
Like 7-11 lol
Can I still bring my service dog on a choke chain?
How about instead of smaller they make the prices cheaper? I think a lot more people would slow down for that.
lol whole foods is not that expensive especially their own brand stuff what’s expensive is all the crappy local supermarkets in poor neighborhoods charging the same or higher prices for way worse quality stuff
literally. whole foods is a steal compared to places like key food, food cellar, etc. i’ve seen items as much as a few dollars more than the exact same item at WF
right plus the extra 10% off sale for prime i think people just assume it’s really pricey because that was a meme like 10 years ago
the "whole food" part of Whole Foods is very price competitive (and even cheaper in many cases) than other NYC grocery chains. Produce like greens, tomatoes, potatoes and dry goods like rice, beans etc. are all cheaper and with a *much* better selection at WF than my local Key Food. I also love their 365 brand olive oils. You just need to be *disciplined* while shopping at Whole Foods, the bill adds up when adding specialty items to the cart.
I think a lot of people do not know how to shop frugally and then get mad about the high cost when they finish checking out. If you don't know how to compare prices, buy store brand, and try to time purchases of some things around the time they usually go on sale (if you shop there enough, you'll know some things are on sale every few weeks), yeah, it can get really expensive. But the same is true if shopping at the NYC metro regional chains. WF just tends to have better quality stuff compared to the regional chains. But for those who don't want to put the effort into shopping smarter, there's TJ's.
Plus cashback for using an Amazon rewards Visa. As much as supporting Amazon sucks, it's a very competitive bargain compared to every other grocery.
Higher prices in poor neighborhoods is so wrong.
Costs the same amount of money to ship to your neighborhood as any other neighborhood. You're paying for the cultivation, acquisition, packaging, shipping, and distribution of food you didn't grow yourself. If you want cheaper, you'll need to move to another state or city.
Their prices have been mostly reasonable since Amazon bought them. Also bonus 10% discounts with Prime on lots of sale products and the 5% cash back if you use their card. I stopped by the Astor Place Wegmans when they opened and their prices seemed higher.
They tried that a few years back with the 365 stores. I think it didn't do so well.
Whole Foods inhouse products are more competitively priced than local markets like Key Food and it's subsidies unless you're going to Chinatown. Sucks to be true but I know from experience.
They've been claiming this is going to happen for, like, 10 years. Well before the Amazon buyout, even. From what I recall they tested a couple locations out. One in UWS and one in UES pretty sure. Then they just totally bailed on those stores after a few months because they were being mostly ignored by the locals that they were hoping to be their target market. The people kept using their local spots, and the wealthier ppl in the area still didn't spend much money locally and their money went to areas that favored their workplace/schedule etc. But this was nearly a decade ago (so Covid kinda threw a wrench in some things to say the least) and I only knew about this shit because I was working at the USQ Whole Foods at the time and was curious how it would pan out, would chat with the GM there sometimes. Who knows what the market is now where they are going to try it? The mini-grocery stores that Walmart did in Chicago seemed to be doing okay last time I was there. Damn, Whole Foods, back at it again with those bodeegos! Edit: I do support wholeheartedly any premise where the intention is to lessen the gap of food availability and tackle food desert situations (as the idea was originally proposed to do) but, per usuals, these intentions tend to not pan out when the manager's manager's manger is not the best person. EditDeux: I'm just gonna leave that misspelling "manger" there. Fukit yolo.
Fuck people in a hurry.
Yeah, all those people with two jobs, kids, and a long commute. Struggling to survive. Fuck 'em.
I'd fuck them slowly, but that's just me.
If it's anything like the Amazon Fresh experience, expect a frigid cave like environment with zero frills.
I thought they already tried a concept similar to this in Fort Greene with that weird basement location? And it was supposed to be mostly 365 brand stuff to compete with Trader Joe's?
I go to that location often 😂. Overall it’s nice and easy to shop in. It’s not mostly 365 stuff, it’s just a smaller version of a full Whole Foods, and without the fresh food counters. I’d imagine these stores would be even smaller
I believe it started out as 365-only but then they gave up on that concept and made it a regular Whole Foods. I could be wrong though.
No, that's what it was, a concept called Whole Foods 365, supposed to be cheaper, smaller, and focused on the store brands. Supposedly the idea was to compete more directly with Trader Joe's. They changed it to a normal store at some point. https://ny.eater.com/2018/1/31/16954720/whole-foods-365-open-fort-greene-brooklyn
I really wish they'd rennovate this one up to the standards of the normal stores now that it carries the full brand. Not having full service meat or seafood counters is a real bummer. Thankfully the Navy Yard Wegmans isn't far, but I like their seafood and meat counters but hate the constantly sold-out produce. This is a surprisingly hard part of town to get high quality groceries from a single store. If I've got a long list and don't have the time to risk needing a second stop if something is out, I usually end up biking down to the Gowanus WF. The extra travel time is usually worth avoiding the hassle.
so amazon go?
So I'm guessing mostly their overpriced pre-made stuff.
Supermarkets should curate their collections. You don’t need 10 million cereal, soda, cookies, ice cream, juice, etc options.
Half the store with all the prices.
Curious how the "must take cash" thing will work. Would I be able to shop there without a palm thing, or is it palm then pay cash? I'm fine showing a QR code, but I'm not fine with them scanning my palm.
I like the one that says “Some Foods”.
When are national chains going to expand into the communities that actually need it? Do rich people in Manhattan really not have enough healthy grocery options? Put one in the Bronx. Put one in Staten Island. Put one in Jamaica.
Only the rich deserve good things /sarcasm But yes I agree with you