(Another) Whole Foods is coming to Williamsburg.
The grocery store chain will open a 10,700-square-foot storefront at 774 Grand Street, Crain’s NY reports. The storefront joins other smaller-style, grab-and-go spaces under the brand’s “daily shop” umbrella (which some have dubbed similar to a bodega — we’re not going that far sans cat). The first of these opened last year on the Upper East Side.
The daily shop joins the Whole Foods outpost at Bedford Avenue and North 4th Street. It will operate out of the ground floor space of a mixed-use building, which houses apartments on the other floors. The location directly faces an Amazon package hub so….brand synergy in action.
No official date was given, but the shop is expected to open later this year.
You can also hit up the neighboring C-Town, Foodtown, or Bravo Supermarkets (or plenty of great smaller options, too!) if you’re loath to line the pockets of a billionaire financing their girlfriend’s trip to “space.”
Bezos is no longer the CEO of Amazon and owns under 10% of the company while continuing to sell off his shares. He’s also one of the world’s richest people so there’s a snowballs chance in hell that he’s relying on WholeFoods to fund his Blue Origin ambitions. Whole Foods and their affiliate businesses are a part of the neighborhood too whether you like it or not. I say that as someone who thinks Whole Foods has gotten progressively worse over time.
Too many people like to freely toss around the term “bodega” without knowing what one is. Do you, as the writer of this article, actually know a bodega when you think you see one? Bodegas are small grocery stores owned and operated in Spanish speaking neighborhoods by hispanics, ie Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, etc. Yemeni owned and operated convenience stores are are not, by any stretch of the imagination, and cannot be called “bodegas”. The later only sell halal food, meaning you can’t get a ham sandwich, real BLT or any other pork product. Bodegas have a distinctive signage in red and yellow which is readily identified by native NY’ers as the location of a real, honest to goodness bodega, not some cheap imitation. In a real bodega, a native NY’er doesn’t have to spend ten minutes explaining to the counter guy what a “regular” coffee is.
Jealous much about other people’s success? Gentrifiers and playcationing, parentally-subsidized Gen Z’ers love the hell out of Whole Foods. As far as lining the pockets of a billionaire, the owners of the alternatives you mentioned aren’t hurting for scratch themselves.