It's been about a week since San Francisco's newest Whole Foods, its seventh location, opened on Market and Dolores. Located directly across Market Street from Safeway, which is in turn located across Church Street from mom-and-pop outfit Golden Produce and Golden Natural Foods, the new opening will be a most dramatic case study for what happens when a neighborhood's grocery options hit the high water mark.
As a Lower Haight resident for almost six years, this reporter has always found our neighborhood options pretty top-notch. The Safeway is, after all, open 24 hours, and you have not truly experienced the many textures of human existence until you've grocery-shopped there at 3am. For the most part, though, Safeway is best suited to quotidian needs like toilet paper, stamps and booze. Golden Produce and Golden Natural Foods have always been a go-to for general groceries: they have fresh produce at good prices, a solid selection of even the most arcane ingredients and a family-owned vibe that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
With all that being said, it was with some trepidation that I checked out the new Whole Foods yesterday. The reason? Stepping into a WF is like entering a lifestyle commercial where unicorns are real and it's totally okay to spend $80 on probiotic supplements. The soothing design! The helpful staff! The fresh guacamole! Everything at Whole Foods is designed to give you a sense of plenty, and of entitlement, and no matter how hard I try to resist, I'm a total sucker for all of it. So much so that the sudden proximity of this particular Whole Foods doesn't just make me worry about other shoppers swarming away from more cost-effective and family-owned options: I'm worried that I'll be the one unable to resist.
The newest WF isn't the largest nor is it the best designed. (The gold-on-white aisle signs are super hard to read, and the cords attaching the salad tongs to the cases? Come on.) The vibe was not one of unbridled excitement at the opening (except, it should be said, for the charming and enthusiastic staff). The inexplicable and out-of-place shoeshine stand stood empty. And the vaguely zombified shoppers circulating the floor had an air less of joy than of quiet, self-assured entitlement. Their demeanor telegrammed, "We deserve nothing less." Were they neighborhood shoppers I'd seen at Golden or on dawn patrol at Safeway, or were they coming from farther afield and bringing their cash monies with them?
As I tried to think clearly about the economics benefits and community drawbacks to the new store, I felt my eyes glazing over at the ample prepared foods section and my fingers reaching for my wallet. I ended up buying some dried cranberries, a butternut squash and some sour cream, all of which I could've gotten elsewhere but here felt somehow more aspirational, as if the soup I was about to make would be featured in a glossy magazine spread (for which I'd be amply paid, of course). I left the store feeling good, but as I walked home past Golden Natural Foods and saw Sally working the register like always, I was cut down by guilt.
Of course, it's up to market forces to determine which grocery options stay and which go. It'll be interesting to watch this and other cases across the city. For example, how will new foodie outpost Local Mission Market fare on Harrison and 23rd Streets, for instance, and what of the many nearby Mexican markets? How is Green Earth Natural Foods holding up since Bi-Rite moved to Divisadero?
Here's what I do know: it'll take time before Safeway and Golden feel the effects of the new arrival, but feel it they will. And try as I might to continue supporting Golden Produce, and I will try, I can't help but be afraid that we'll see another locally-owned business bite the dust. So I've devised a simple plan for what I'm allowing myself to buy at WF: yes to fancy body oils, grab-and-go sushi, and SooFoo (grain medley of the gods!); no to anything I can buy at Golden, which is closer, cheaper, and way less glamorous.