Their produce section was amazing, full of very fresh produce of all kinds. And I loved their cheese department, one of the few places I could find real imported Norwegian Gjetost. I also loved their seafood department. Ive had some very bad experiences buying supposedly fresh seafood at my regular local grocery store (I bought a bag of muscles from Super Fresh what used to be A&P but when I got them home, they smelled so bad, so rancid and reeked of ammonia that I nearly threw up. I put them in a heavy trash bag and took them back to the store for a refund but the store manager at first refused to refund my money, trying to tell me thats what muscles are supposed to smell like ) but the seafood at Whole Food was very fresh and premo, although it was also at a premo price.
I also recall buying veal and some very good spring lamb at Whole Foods. I got a cookbook from a neighbor and good friend one Christmas, a Williams and Sonoma cookbook; Snow Country Cooking that had a recipe for Braised Veal Shanks (Osso Buco) that I really wanted to make for her and her husband as a thank you and I went from grocery store to grocery store looking for veal shanks and couldnt find them or any veal in any store until I finally found them at Whole Foods. And the guy at the meat counter was very friendly and very helpful as were all the Whole Foods employees I encountered.
Now some of their customers did, as someone said, look rather crunchy. I saw a fair number of pasty looking, vegetarian, dreadlock wearing, smelling of patchouli oil PETA types but in all fairness, none of them gave me a hard time and I also saw a lot of upper income types and just foodies, people who like to cook like me.
Now that I live in central PA, the only major grocery chains are Giant and Weis. Giant is somewhat better than Weis but Id really love to see a Wegmans open up near me. The closest one to me is in Hunt Valley MD and Mechanicsburg PA, both an hour drive away.
Whole Foods also has a wonderful cheese department.