Whole Foods Market
Opened: January 2015
Welcome to... the South End? Technically, yes, this is still part of the South End, but it's on the border of Chinatown. This Whole Foods was built in 2014 and opened in early 2015 as part of a new mixed-use development on the site of the former Boston Herald offices, which moved out of the city to Braintree.
It's one of the largest supermarkets in the downtown Boston area, clocking in at just about 50,000 square feet. The layout is a little bit different from most Whole Foods stores, but a similar setup. If you enter on the left side, you find yourself in the liquor store and cheese department, with meat and seafood on the back wall. Dairy and frozen are also on the left side, while the grand aisle is on the right side. Deli/prepared foods, bakery, produce, and a coffee shop are all on the right side.
I do particularly love the decor in this store, and it came from the period right before Amazon acquired Whole Foods. That period, to me, was Whole Foods' golden age: they had a great fleet of attractive, mostly well-run stores with great decor and fun offerings. Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017, about two years after this store opened. And they still have pretty great decor in the stores, but it's much simpler and less exciting than this period.
This decor couldn't have been cheap, but I love the look!
Looking across the back wall of the store to the grand aisle on the right side.
There are so many great touches, such as the glass-walled butcher room. I have seen this in newer Whole Foods, too, and it's a great look.
Dairy, somewhat unusually, is in an aisle here, not on a perimeter wall or facing the deli and prepared foods department.
Even minor touches like the curved holders for the category markers elevate the store's overall appearance.
I don't know of too many other Whole Foods where produce, deli/bakery, and prepared foods are all on the same side of the store. More often, the deli/bakery and prepared foods departments are on the opposite side of the store from produce.
And it sure was nice looking produce when I visited! I really like the blue cartons and, of course, the wall of vegetables...
Looking back towards the meat/seafood side of the store...
There's a juice bar at the back of the produce department, and you can see the deli/prepared foods area in front of the produce department.
I hadn't seen many of these self-service cases in bakeries, where a variety of pastries and the like are available for customers to take. This, naturally, didn't make it through the coronavirus and the stores that previously had these cases now use them for individually packaged desserts.
Self-service bread is a standby at Whole Foods, though. Older stores tended to have them out on shelves in front of the bakery counter rather than in an upright case against a wall.
Prepared foods bars...
I love this signage, too!
I don't know how much of the food service features here made it through the coronavirus, but the Allegro coffee shop is now run by La Colombe.
Looking towards the back of the grand aisle...
And a look across the front-end.
As usual, a cafe runs along the front wall of the store beyond the registers.
Owner: Amazon
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 348 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
Photographed: July 27, 2019
This is a beautiful Whole Foods, and actually it's the largest supermarket for some distance around. (There's a large Star Market in Back Bay a mile west and another at North Station a mile and a half north, plus the South Bay Stop & Shop a mile and a half south.) And although it's smaller, there's another supermarket just a block away from this store. Come back tomorrow to tour it!
Comments
Post a Comment