Whole Foods opens on Wednesday!
Get ready for some more awesome Short Pump traffic – Whole Foods is opening the doors to its brand, spankin’ new store in “West Broad Village” on Wednesday. Do you think the folks at Ellwood Thompson’s are shaking in their hemp boots?
Get ready for some more awesome Short Pump traffic – Whole Foods is opening the doors to its brand, spankin’ new store in “West Broad Village” on Wednesday.
Do you think the folks at Ellwood Thompson’s are shaking in their hemp boots?
-
Recommend this
on Facebook -
Report an error
-
Subscribe to our
Weekly Digest
Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Hemp boots?
I grew up around whole foods in Charlottesville, it was my parents go to place for food, even with out small budget. Now being in the middle of my college career here in Richmond and with all that has changed since my days in grade school, why in the world would I want to drive all the way out to the mecca of suburban sprawl to the walmart of natural food stores to pay more for hot bar than ellwood’s charges and have choices of non-organic, non-local produce?
Plus, I just realized that I could ride my bike to ellwoods and get a quarter back in my pocket. f*ck driving out there. It’s time to centralize our downtown again. Once the theater opens on boulevard, I think I can totally phase short pump out. Food/Shopping/Entertainment are all within a bike ride if you live anywhere around the fan, museum district, broad st. museum district, oregon hill, jackson ward, carver. Represent locally! f*ch shortpump.
Isn’t ellwoods expanding? and getting a coffee shop according to craigs lists hirings? which means they must be doing okay by wanting to expand and offer their community more options. I know ellwoods is exspensive, but what isnt these days?
Whole Foods will appeal to the West Enders who might not want to fight their way into town but I don’t see a lot of Richmonders deciding its worth the trek down to Short Pump to get the same stuff from a chain that charges a bit more and doesn’t have the roots Ellwoods has. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Whole Foods fan myself and will probably hit it once just to see how everything looks, but if I had to choose between the two I’d probably stick with Ellwoods for its convenient location and general goodness.
Whole Foods is so 2005. Why benefit a big, non-local corporation?
Fresh Fields (a company that was later bought out by Whole Foods) had a store in the West End where Guitar Center’s located. That location eventually closed. I don’t think the question is whether Ellwood Thompson’s customers will go to Whole Foods, but whether Ukrops’ customers from the West End will.
“Whole Foods is so 2005. Why benefit a big, non-local corporation?”
Because they do provide jobs, and because Ukrop’s needs to be taken down a notch.
competition makes everybody better…
As an Ellwood’s employee, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can say that I’m not shaking in my flip flops (it’s too early in the season to where hemp boots). I’m confidant that Ellwoods will continue to thrive – in fact; the store is expanding to meet customers’ needs and opening its first-ever coffee shop.
Most people who shop at Ellwoods live or work in the city. Others shop at Ellwoods because they feel strongly about keeping their money in the local economy and prefer shopping with local independents. While another customer group is comprised of those seeking food and vitamins/supplements that support their specific health needs. After visiting WF for the wow factor, I don’t think many people from the aforementioned groups will make the trek out to Short Pump for groceries that they can get within blocks, for some, or at most, a few miles from their homes.
Ellwoods is often scrutinized for its pricing, when the company makes less money selling groceries than conventional grocery stores. The real issue is the true cost of food – especially organics. Organic foods are produced in a labor-intensive manner employing people, not harmful pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. Organic farms are typically smaller operations that don’t benefit from federal subsidies. When you buy organics and naturally grown produce from small farms/producers, you are paying for your food all at once. Many people don’t realize that they pay for conventional food in two installments – at checkout and when they pay their taxes.
Isn’t it true that all higher quality items, food or otherwise, cost more starting at the production level? It’s that simple. And personally looking forward to the education some will receive when they see Whole Foods pricing. It’s not called “Whole Paycheck” for nothing.
Like South of the Border, Short Pump is not a destination and Whole Foods will not change that fact (read http://styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=17627).
Why would I shop in Short Pump and support that exurbia hell with sale tax dollars?
Ellwood will not lose my patronage. I wish ET would open a small grocery shop in Church Hill perhaps there on 29th Street and Broad where the Church Hill market was supposed to open eons ago.
let me say this. the salad bar at ET is delicious!
It IS delicious.
I don’t think Ellwood is going to suffer from Whole foods opening. I’ve had good and bad experiences from the Whole foods in Charlottesville so it is a wait and see. It all depends on how much it is going to dent the paycheck.
ET has the city. Whole Foods has Short Pump. There’s plenty of customers to go around for both to thrive…
I am one of Ellwood’s harshest critics, BUT I think there’s room for both businesses to be successful. The current craze of ethical and healthy dietary choices has flooded the market with products and consumers (and now even more traffic in Short Pump). Although the development way out on Broad seems pretty boneheaded, at least the clusterf… isn’t downtown. If only Trader Joe’s had the wisdom to extricate itself from that trainwreck in favor of a spot at Willow Lawn. When I went to a NoVa location of TJ’s they had a sign up that explained that four bags of their groceries was $165 vs. $236 at Whole Foods (or something like that for comparable items). I don’t even want to contemplate the sticker shock of four bags at Ellwoods.
from what I remember, City Market didn’t do too well in the burbs, but times have changed.
How about Fresh Market out by Regency? That place is mobbed every weekend and bourgie as all heck. I don’t think the West End got the memo about an alleged recession. Again, evidence of a fertile market for Whole Foods.
RVA Foodie – prepare yourself for the sticker shock when/if you shop at WF. You’ll find the prices are the same on most items, but sometimes higher than ET. You can bet that TJ’s pulled some of their most affordable grocery items and therefore had to pull pricing for comparable items at WF for their comparison promo. I’d love to see what was on the list because Ellwood’s price would likely be the same as Whole Food’s or slightly lower.
That won’t stop Short Pumpers from filling their baskets.
bopst – as for City Market when it was on Patterson…it did well, very well. The company quickly outgrew the location and moved to its present location at Ellwood and Thompson.
Nothing will stop Short Pumpers from filling their baskets or fat vans.
Add the cost of gas and blood to that Whole Foods sticker price.
Anyone know when Silver Diner’s supposed to open up? I’m all for some love for local businesses, but I do loves me some Silver Diner…
Pumpers!
Damn pumpers!
Let it be known, it was mentioned first on RVAnews…
The title Pumpers has been bestowed to the cookie-cutter inhabitants of the area that used to be a lovely rural locale and is now full of big box retailers and too much traffic. When will we see the new term on wikipedia?
It’s not a bad thing really, especially if the sprawl stops there in Short Pump (a girl can dream), since Pumpers can get everything they need within a two-mile strip of Broad St. The rest of us have the city.
Lesley, But the Pumpers (by the way thanks for the great term) have to drive atleast 20 minutes or more for culture and they have to spend the night with a friend if they decide to have a beer in town.