Whole Foods

[Comm'l Real Estate Guy]

To be honest, there arent many good "locations." I think thats part of the reason they havent opened here yet. I had no specific places in mind really, but I always assumed it would be somewhere along NW Expressway & May/Penn/Belle Isle area.

NW Expressway has the traffic counts, but not the household income requirements WF is going to look for. And the Classen Curve is in the Belle Isle area...in fact it's sandwiched between Belle Isle and Nichols Hills, and not far from Crown Heights.

[progressiveboy]

NW Expressway has the traffic counts, but not the household income requirements WF is going to look for. And the Classen Curve is in the Belle Isle area...in fact it's sandwiched between Belle Isle and Nichols Hills, and not far from Crown Heights.

Location, Location, Location. Agree that WF would be demographically good for Classen Curve because of the close proximity to NH, Crown Heights, Belle Isle. Also not to terribly far from Lake Aluma and Edmond. I do not think Edmond has quite the population to support a WF. I feel they have the demographics however from a numbers stand point not quite there yet.Once they reach 100,000 plus then perhaps they can support there own WF.

[BG918]

I would imagine in 5 years there will be a WF in Nichols Hills, central Edmond, and west Norman.

[JerzeeGrlinOKC]

Classen Curve area will be great for another reason you all might be forgetting: Chesapeake Lunch Hour. I bet they make most of their money on their prepared foods section (hot food bar, etc). Business lunch will be packed! That combined with Nichols Hills demographics makes this area a perfect prospect for this long-prophesied WF ;-)

[ThePlainsman]

Jeez, where are all the CHK employees on this? Didn't Aubrey just say that he'll "do his damnedest" to bring a Whole Foods to OKC by 2011 at one your town hall meetings? At least that's what a little birdy told me. Look for it to be in the Classen Curve/CHK/Nichols Hills Shopping Center area would be my guess.

[bluedogok]

NW Expressway has the traffic counts, but not the household income requirements WF is going to look for. And the Classen Curve is in the Belle Isle area...in fact it's sandwiched between Belle Isle and Nichols Hills, and not far from Crown Heights.

That is why we don't have one in South Austin, there is the HQ store downtown and the one in The Arboretum area (Gateway Center) that was supposed to move to The Domain this year before the crash at the end of last year. They have really never talked about one in South Austin. We do have a Central Market (part of HEB) and the first Newflower Farmers Market (Sunflower Farmers Market outside Texas) and Sprouts Farmers Market stores that opened up in town. They look at a slightly different demographic than Whole Paycheck does.

I know that in almost seven years of living here that I can count the times that I have been to the WF stores here on one hand...in fact I may have been to the Boston/Beacon Hill store more than the ones here. I have been to the recently opened Newflower/Sprouts more, mainly because they are convenient. I still pretty much choose Central Market over any of them.

[jbrown84]

Whole Paycheck

Well I know personally I would prefer Central Market, but they have no interest in expanding outside Texas from what I've heard.

[soonerguru]

That is why we don't have one in South Austin, there is the HQ store downtown and the one in The Arboretum area (Gateway Center) that was supposed to move to The Domain this year before the crash at the end of last year. They have really never talked about one in South Austin. We do have a Central Market (part of HEB) and the first Newflower Farmers Market (Sunflower Farmers Market outside Texas) and Sprouts Farmers Market stores that opened up in town. They look at a slightly different demographic than Whole Paycheck does.

I know that in almost seven years of living here that I can count the times that I have been to the WF stores here on one hand...in fact I may have been to the Boston/Beacon Hill store more than the ones here. I have been to the recently opened Newflower/Sprouts more, mainly because they are convenient. I still pretty much choose Central Market over any of them.

What can we do to get Central Market? I have friends who say unequivocally they are better than Whole Foods. Not just cheaper, but better.

[fuzzytoad]

What can we do to get Central Market? I have friends who say unequivocally they are better than Whole Foods. Not just cheaper, but better.

ooh, forgot about them.. they'll sell local produce in addition to the regular nationwide stuff.

[bluedogok]

Right now HEB (based in San Antonio) is expanding in the DFW market, that is their focus. They did have some stores in Southwest Lousiana that were handled out of Houston but sold those off a few years ago. They have another division that is doing expansion into Mexico but I think that might be some sort of joint venture with a Mexican concern. I know that my dad wishes that HEB/Central Market would expand into OKC. I don't see it happening until the DFW market is saturated. It is a privately owned company, so their growth plans have always been kept pretty quiet.

[soonerguru]

Right now HEB (based in San Antonio) is expanding in the DFW market, that is their focus. They have another division that is doing expansion into Mexico but I think that might be some sort of joint venture with a Mexican concern. I know that my dad wishes that HEB/Central Market would expand into OKC.

Can they be bribed? Does Aubrey McClendon have Howard E. Butts' phone number?

[bluedogok]

HEB and Central Market is where we do about 95% of our grocery shopping.

[jbrown84]

Can they be bribed? Does Aubrey McClendon have Howard E. Butts' phone number?

Phone number to the grave?

[CCOKC]

When I lived in Waco, I shopped at HEB a lot. Pretty sad that Waco, TX has better grocery stores than we do. When I lived there Waco was one of the poorest cities in the country as well.

[okcpulse]

Nothing sad about it. HEB is a Texas only operation. Doesn't matter what town they locate in, they'll put a store in Armadillo Craphole, TX before they put one in any state. Not OKC's fault.

Waco still is one of the poorest cities. But face it, poeple. Texas sucks the life out of its neighboring states. It is what it is.

[betts]

I don't know if it's coincidence, but the Hahn-Cook funeral home on the corner of Classen and Grand and the adjacent building are being torn down.

[ronronnie1]

I just don't get all this obsession over Whole Foods. Yeah it's a nice store with overpriced stuff, but other then that? Sorry, but I'm not losing any sleep over this.

[lasomeday]

Whole Foods for some young people is like having an NBA team. It is a reason for them to live in a community. Sounds funny, but it is true.

[gamecock]

Yes, this is a very big deal to some of us, and my wife and I hope that Whole Foods will finally come here this year. As others have said in the past, if we had decent grocery stores here, this wouldn't be such an important issue. But the grocery stores in this area are just terrible compared to what you can find in other areas of the country. And ever since Albertson's left, things have only gotten worse. Many of us are willing to pay a little extra to shop in an inviting environment that offers a wide variety of products, prepared foods, baked goods, produce, and so on. It doesn't even have to be Whole Foods...in fact, like others, I would probably prefer Central Market if they would somehow come. It's puzzling that some cities can support large numbers of these upscale grocery stores, but we can't even support one. Hopefully, this is a done deal, and they are coming.

[brianinok]

Yes, this is a very big deal to some of us, and my wife and I hope that Whole Foods will finally come here this year. As others have said in the past, if we had decent grocery stores here, this wouldn't be such an important issue. But the grocery stores in this area are just terrible compared to what you can find in other areas of the country. And ever since Albertson's left, things have only gotten worse. Many of us are willing to pay a little extra to shop in an inviting environment that offers a wide variety of products, prepared foods, baked goods, produce, and so on. It doesn't even have to be Whole Foods...in fact, like others, I would probably prefer Central Market if they would somehow come. It's puzzling that some cities can support large numbers of these upscale grocery stores, but we can't even support one. Hopefully, this is a done deal, and they are coming.

My sentiments exactly.

[okcpulse]

It's puzzling that some cities can support large numbers of these upscale grocery stores, but we can't even support one.

Nooooooooooooo. We can, it's just that their hoity-toity asses won't put a store here for us to support.

[betts]

I went on their website, to see if there was any information about new stores, and what I found was really annoying. There is a store in Omaha, Little Rock, Salt Lake City, two in Albuquerque, and two in South Carolina, Greenville and Charleston. Why do we keep getting left out, when we're quite a bit bigger than many of these cities? Even if we don't have the average income they do, we have so much more population that statistically, we're going to have as many or more people who can afford to shop at Whole Foods.

[lasomeday]

We just have to keep suggesting them to put one in OKC. It is part of their website. Most of the suggestions are to expand into suburbs of cities they are already in.

[PennyQuilts]

Nooooooooooooo. We can, it's just that their hoity-toity asses won't put a store here for us to support.

If they thought we'd support it enough that they'd make money, they'd do it. Get serous - it is a business, not a social club or a church.

[mugofbeer]

My former employer won't put an office in OKC because the advertising rates in the DOK are some of the highest, if not THE highest, per-capita of any major city in the country. OKC is now the largest city in the country without an office of my former employer. Grocery stores do a huge amount of newspaper advertising so, perhaps, one big reason is that Whole Foods doesn't want to pony up the rates the DOK demands?