Some notes on the TriBeCa Whole
Foods, which I just toured this afternoon: It’s huge, and set up to accommodate families in the area. (Square footage is 69,000, second only to the Bowery location’s 71,000.) It has 13 checkout lines with conveyor belts (the first belts in the city) and 28 express checkout lines set up like others around town. The store offers oyster shucking; the biggest fresh-cut cheese department in town; the most grocery aisles; and a big bulk food section with items like beans, rice, grains, cereal, salt, and pepper. There’s a genji station (for sushi), a pizza station with a Roman-style oven, a Shawarmi station, a big bakery with bread made from scratch on the premises, and a crêpe station on the second floor.

The emphasis here is on local products, of course, and on recycling. The wood on the tables in the café was salvaged from some river in the south where it had been underwater since the 1800s, or some crazy thing like that. They’re really pushing the recycled bags here, and as always you get 10 cents credit for each bag that you bring. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures during the tour, but the main floor of this store is unbelievably big. It’s the most suburban grocery store in the city, and I’ll be there when it officially opens this Wednesday!