Gawker
As anyone who eats and/or lives below 14th street knows, today at 8:00 a.m. the Whole Foods Bowery will throw open its doors to the unwashed masses desirous of fresh produce and hoity-toity foodstuffs in aisles stretching toward infinity. Many predict a foodie riot when the doors open, as residents who have waited years, YEARS, for the opening clamor for a taste . I'm suiting up in my flak vest, and yuppie fatigues to check out the scene. Expect live updates via Blackberry, (stk is sld out, womn gves birth! LOL) after the jump!
7:55 a.m.
Doors open. After a short speech (this is the best store in the whole northeast region!) there's a bread breaking ceremony with a ten foot loaf [Ed Note: Ewww!] and the customers are applauded and let in!
8:01 a.m.
Cedar wrapped primavera salmon! $8.99
Lemon dill sockeye salmon burgers! $6.99
8:07 am.
Lady at salad bar not impressed. "It's not fully stocked," she complains. And she's pissed the olives are ten bucks a pound and not eight, like the rest of the salad bar. She's got a point!
8:09 a.m.
Guss' pickles for ten bucks a pound. How much are they at Guss's, I wonder? [Ed Note: Internet says they are 49 bucks for a gallon.]
8:11 a.m.
Cafes of plainclothed employees with digicams are roaming the store. And by cafes I mean cadres. $%&$ blackberry!
8:13 a.m.
Staff to customer ratio starting to level out at comfy one to one.
8:16 a.m.
Sausage party! Sixteen types of sausage including Apulian chicken sausage in lamb casing and pineapple Ligurian chicken sausage in pork casing!
8:20 a.m.
Weird organic clothing upstairs. Living Planet camisole for seventy bucks? One woman walked by and said, impressed, "Well they don't have THESE at Trader Joe's!"
8:23 a.m.
Oh shit! They have Highlights! I love goofus and gallant. And also Hip Mama, the parenting zine. No Child, obvi.
8:26 a.m.
Just saw an employee feather-dusting jars of whey protein!
8:27 a.m.
The healthy lifestyle center has yoga mats, candles and copies of Good magazine.
8:28 a.m.
What's missing? Samples!
8:30 a.m.
First baby spotted.
8:33 a.m.
Man eating tofu drops a cube. One employee kicks it by accident, one steps on it. Finally a manager wipes it up. Crap, did I say employee? I meant "team member."
8:37 a.m.
Register broken at Allegro coffee! Is broken! Free coffee!
8:40 a.m.
holy shit wifi!
8:44 a.m.
Man, no more stupid Blackberry typos. Sitting now at a long table upstairs connected to Default. Lots of contractors up here. Few customers. The employees of Sushiya busily preparing sushi.
8:47 a.m.
That woman who loved the organic clothing is a laid off Money magazine employee! Ha!
8:52 a.m.
At the coffee place, Allegro; at the sushi place, Sushiya; at the Italian place Rustica Minardi and at the salad bar, combined, there must be 40 signs saying, "No Tipping." Okay, we get it.
8:55 a.m.
Caravan of stroller, cart, stroller, cart, stroller, stroller just passed. We should start calling this place LES Slope or something.
9:01 a.m.
Just got in a shoving match with the same douchebag who dropped the tofu! I expect this kind of thing to happen a lot as social outcasts come out of the woodwork for the organic produce.
9:09 a.m.
Just got a sample of the Sonoma chicken salad and the woman couldn't figure out how to open the deli case. Adorable! (Salad is delicious.)
9:13 a.m.
Chocolate hazelbut gelato from laboratorio del gelato already sold out!
9:17 a.m.
The sushi place has a conveyor belt! Genius!
9:22 a.m.
There's a Q and A board full of made-up questions, like Whole Foods looks like a hard place to work... How do I go about the process of future employment? And other messages, all in the same girlie hand writing and signed with men's names. Just like magazines!
9:24 a.m.
Fake graffiti in the rumpus room! It says 'LES'!
9:29 a.m.
David Haskell, editor of Topic magazine, says: "No smoothie bar! That's what I love! But in general I'm elated!"
9:34 a.m.
A bunch of off-duty Union Square Whole Foods employees stop by. Consensus? This one's prettier but Union Square is the money maker. Says one: "That's right baby. We the money maker!"
9:37 a.m.
I'm fucking bored out of my mind.
9:40 a.m.
My nostrils ache from the many wondrous strange odors, my eyeballs burn from all the wide-eyed awe, my thumbs are sore from the live blogging and I can't take any more of the swing music that they're piping over the loud speakers!
9:42 a.m.
Just noticed the aisles are named Delancey, division, bowery, second Ave...etc. Just picked up a scone at st marks place. Sadly there aren't any dirty pink urchins here.
9:45 a.m.
Pommes frites bar open in t minus ninety minutes!
9:50 a.m.
Staff-customer ratio revision: everybody works here! No uniforms but you see their creepy smile and you know. Also they have name tags.
9:53 a.m.
This is the longest I've ever spent in a grocery store.
9:55 a.m.
Holy shit! Just met the woman responsible for the Whole Foods font! Her name is Charlotte and the font's name is Molly. She is a sweet older lady with an angelic face. She's responsible for the whole northeast. She says each store has a couple of writers or "store artists": this one has two.
10:00 a.m.
The shnozberries taste like shnozberries! [Ed. Note: Josh is losing it. Can someone go pull him out?]
10:05 a.m. You can make your own nutter-butters!
10:10 a.m. FREEDOM is just another word for getting out of whole foods. The crystal air of the bowery has never smelled so fresh.
