Storefronting Bonus: WholeFoodsified Wild Oats Coming

Thursday, February 22, 2007, by Leslie Price

2007_02_WholeFoodsLogo It's obvious that gourmet grocery chain Whole Foods is working to corner the local fancy supermarket market, so to speak. In their short NYC tenure, the retailer has caused many other chains—Gristedes, Food Emporium—to shutter or totally revamp. Courtesy of a thread in the investing/stock section of Yahoo! Message Boards, we learn that granola-crunchy chain Wild Oats, headquartered in Boulder, CO, might be opening 15 stores in the New York metro area within the next year. A possible threat to Whole Foods' domination? Well, the story doesn't end there.

Yesterday, it was announced that Whole Foods will be buying its smaller rival for a cool $565 million. Organic domination comes in so many flavors these days.
· Oats to expand into NY metro area [Y! Finance Boards]
· Whole Foods inks $565M deal for Wild Oats [CNN]

BONUS WHOLE FOODS CHATTER:
· Park Slopers Petition for a Greener Whole Foods [Brooklyn Record]
· Downhill alert: Whole Food's Union Square [Chowhound]

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Comments (11 extant)

rut roh...NIMBY's are gonna freak!!!!

By patty cake at February 22, 2007 3:18 PM

Ah yes, exactly what the city needs, another glut of chain stores. I suppose it's inevitable given the fact that they are the tenants who can afford the rent... other than Duane Reade of course.

By Anonymous at February 22, 2007 5:57 PM

hey #2, would you rather have to shop at Gross-tedes?

If I'm going to pay $4 for an apple I'd rather it be fresh.

By blahblahblah at February 22, 2007 6:25 PM

Fuck Whole Foods. I live within walking distance, and I don't care how many parking spots they have or whether or not they grow cilantro on their roof. Support your local businesses. They are plenty of excellent local businesses in Park Slope that already charge $4 for an apple.

Denton

By Denton at February 22, 2007 7:40 PM

And why should I care about supporting local business Denton?

By Anonymous at February 22, 2007 11:10 PM

#2,do you know the food quality in Union Square Whole Foods? Most of green grapes are brown! Strowberries look almost dead! I'd rather buy apples at Farmers Market.

By Anonymous at February 22, 2007 11:30 PM

No, I have no desire to shop at "Gross-tedes" if indeed it's "gross" as you refer to it, and that one particual store is to the best of my knowledge not representative of the overall quality of their products. Nor do I have an issue with Whole Foods in general- I just don't want to see 18 of them sprinkled around the city, at the expense of smaller, local businesses as Denton puts it.

We already have Fresh Direct offering non-interactive shopping ( God forbid anyone should shop next to another human being, or even worse, strike up a conversation ) competing for business against places like Fairway, Balducci's, Zabar's, etc. Those are the places that give this city a stamp of individuality, that make it different than other cities, or perhaps more appropriately in this context the "burbs".

No one that I know actively seeks out "$4 apples", and I certainly don't. What I want to see is progress and added conveniences, selection and affordability, but if that comes at the expense of creating a "pretense of NYC", than I say forget it.

It's just interesting that for something like the past 40-50 years, no one made a stink about Gristedes or other upscale smaller businesses that sold their goods at a premium price, but now that the chain conglomerates have arrived, all of a sudden it's become an issue.

Change is inevitable, and you can always count on someone, somwhere, having objections to it. What doesn't have to be inevitable, is gratuitious changes that are happening here. Case in point- is it really neccesary or appropriate to have a Bed, Bath, and Beyond directly across the street from Lincoln Center? I don't know about anyone else, but when I exit the Metropolitan Opera House, I can't imagine seeing anything more offensive than that.

This will not stop, and it will continue to increase, unless Commercial Real Estate Corporations use more discretion, and show some respect for the character of NYC neighborhoods. Wishing that would happen is something along the lines of waiting for pigs to fly- we all know how likely that is.

Sorry for the long posting.

By From#2 at February 23, 2007 8:00 AM

It's funny I remember when the opposite was happening...people were complaining that grocery stores were more expensive than in the 'burbs & had less selection, and there weren't any places to get quality home goods like a Kmart, that the poor & middle class were affected the most.

One of the reasons was because of old city zoning regs that limited the amount of space per retail store. Less space = less selection, driving up prices.

Now people are complaining about larger stores that actually add value to the community.

...guess you can't win.

and #7....I guess in your experience Gristede's is considered 'upscale' but many people beg to differ.

By blahblahblah at February 23, 2007 10:17 AM

Fairway....please come to the Village!

By patty cake at February 23, 2007 3:13 PM

10.

Let all chant in unison:

FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY! FAIR-WAY!

By big shlonger at February 23, 2007 4:28 PM

11.

Well #8, Gristedes has traditionally located their stores in well-to-do areas of the city, hence th3y served those communities. I referred to them as upscale, but that label probably doesn't suit them now as it did in the past, but they definitely were at one time considered to have an Upsclae Cache.

Hell yeah! Bring Fairway downtown!!! Now that's a place that yells NYC!

By #7 in reply at February 24, 2007 8:12 AM