Monday, May 23, 2016

Silver Lake's 365 by Whole Foods: Here's What You Will and Won't Find

The old Ralph's parking lot has been slightly reconfigured and cleaned up

Will you shop at a Whole Foods without a butcher or fish counter? Will you miss the giant wheels of cheese and the organic yoga clothes? That's what you'll need to weigh when deciding how much you'll embrace the first-ever 365 by Whole Foods, which opens on Glendale Blvd. Wednesday at 9 a.m. The focus is on grab and go items or prepared to order items like pizzas and hot dogs (including a roast carrot dog!), with a healthy dose of technology to speed things up.

The store has an open feel with many of the items in low glass cases

What you won't find:
Beauty products (there are some supplements however)
Butchers and fishmongers
A cheese counter
A bakery counter
Any vestiges of old-school crunchy health-food store aesthetics
A juice bar? I don't think there's a juice bar

This is a teabot. It's a bot, that makes tea.
What you will find: 
A coffee bar that also serves beer.
A teabot
Most of the familiar packaged foods from Whole Foods
A decent selection of spirits and wine and a solid beer selection
A stripped-down industrial look that's more reminiscent of Fresh 'n Easy
A lot of touchscreens, including one in the wine area that offers tasting notes
Lots of food you won't have to actually cook

I got a sneak peek tonight, and though many of the items are stocked, most of the prepared foods won't be out until Wednesday. The LCD price displays weren't activated yet, so I couldn't get an idea of the pricing. Here are some early pics.


Stable produce is stacked in boxes out in the main store, while more delicate items and salads will be behind the glassed-in, air-conditioned area at the rear

The bulk selection is more modest than at Whole Foods

The Allegro coffee bar also serves beer and wine

Order pizzas, bahn mi dogs and sandwiches at this kiosk, and they'll deliver to one of the tables in the eating area

As in some European markets, you weigh your produce before checking out

There are several self-serve checkout kiosks to speed your exit

Vegan cafe By Chloe opens next week next to 365


Do you think you'll be able to do much of your shopping at 365? Or would you have preferred a real Whole Foods or a regular supermarket?

13 comments:

timoirish said...

No butcher or fish counter?! Their research must have convinced the company that no one in the area actually cooks--or that the locals spend countless hours commuting from their jobs in Rancho Cucamonga. The emphasis on ready-to-eat food sounds like a better fit for Burbank or Sherman Oaks--or Palmdale. A real WF or an up-market super would have been a better addition.

Unknown said...

Interesting idea. I'm curious how this downsizing will appeal to people who are used to the whole Whole Foods experience.

And, sorry, but here comes the grammar police...
Express Pay, should say "5-ish items for FEWER"!
Whole Foods/365 is supposed to be an upscale grocery. They rake in millions (billions?) Can they not hire a proof reader for their signage?

Anonymous said...

"5-ish items FOR fewer"..."for"!...Can't you hire a proofreader for your proofreading... grammar police...ha! More like grammar mall cop.

Anonymous said...

I want my Ralph's back.

mr. steiner said...

it looks like they hired 20 mediocre corporate graphic designers that didn't get to communicate with each other. ewwww

Unknown said...

"…people happily used “less” to mean “fewer” for some 900 years before anybody minded."
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/12/less-fewer.html

So just settle down with your carved-in-stone grammar rules.

Anonymous said...

Vons gets my business!

Anonymous said...

The neighborhood will not like getting slapped with crap!

Anonymous said...

This is NOT W/F. It's a travesty! I want my Ralphs back !!!

Anonymous said...

A touch screen at the grocery store that I have to log in to? Please, no.

Did they test this stuff with actual customers first?

Just doesn't appeal to me, but we'll see!

jacqueline f. said...

I'm so disappointed that there is no butcher or fresh fish. What are they really bringing to the table that we don't already get from Trader Joe's? And no bakery. Jeez. Doesn't seem well tHought out. We already have an amazing wine and beer shop just up the street in SilverLake Wine.

Unknown said...

We live around the corner and regularly frequent Trader Joes, Gelsons, Ralphs, Whole Foods and Costco. For seafood I often go to Fish King in Glendale (not far from our regular Whole Foods and our new Ralphs (ugh).) I was holding out optimism that we might narrow our regular weekend shopping from four to three stores, I certainly won't be increasing that number to five regular stops. We need stores that can handle ALL of our weekly shopping requirements, not just a few. We'll try it out but after reading this I'm feeling very pessimistic.

At least we won't have to depend on CVS for our emergency milk and eggs anymore.

Anonymous said...

This is really sad. Its like they paid a bunch of fresh out of design school hobos to come up with as 3rd world ghettp of a look as possible for the frontage They did a pretty amazing job at that. Looks like a closed Safeway that was an indoor swap meet for twenty years that they slapped up with paint and used gel mylars to cover up the cracked windows. Extra points for the painted on signage. Did they truck in some homeless to hang in the parking lot and spread a bunch of trash around too for extra skank? I guess we will find out tomorrow at 9 AM.