another grocery store post

(microblogging means that I don’t have to write that much. I’ll never write anything this long again…)

I have grocery shopped and/or ate at Whole Foods in:

  • Durham, NC (discovered scrambled tofu, morning glory muffins, smoked mozzarella pasta, and jumbles cookies here)
  • Chapel Hill, NC ( cream biscuits sent from heaven )
  • Raleigh, NC
  • Washington, D.C. (great for people watching)
  • Portland, OR (PIZZA!!!!)
  • Oakland, CA (everything about Oakland is cool)
  • San Francisco, CA (nice to nab breakfast on the way to work from here)
  • Los Angeles, CA (really awesome the number of black folks that frequented this one)
  • Cupertino, CA (lame)
  • Santa Barbara, CA (met my daughter’s namesake at this one)
  • Campbell, CA (at least you can get wheat grass at this one)
  • Chicago, CA (ironically one of the best pizza joints in Chicago)
  • Evanston, IL
  • Las Vegas, NV (the best place to detox in Vegas)

Each store has its own flavor that reflects the local culture AND (based on the business model of WFs) managers are free to make business decisions that are responsive to the local clients.  Usually this results in a great opportunity to empirically experience the locals (at least the yuppie-boho-green conscious elites in the locale ) and discover some new foods, ingredients, or in the case of Vegas just get a meal that your body does not hate your for afterwards.

Sometimes, like this morning it results in a startling revelation.  I live in bland Cali Cool  ‘Burbs!!  I wanted some wheatgrass juice and scrambled tofu for breakfast (sometimes a brotha needs to clean house ) and the Cupertino (yes the home of Apple ) WF doesn’t have it.  Thus confirming my impression that South Bay goes through the “California pretense” in a lot of regards.

This theory of WF as a cultural proxy is interesting to me.

Notes