Posted on 10/12/2025 6:01:21 AM PDT by dennisw
The sudden closure of one of the country's very first Whole Foods stores has rocked the upscale Bay Area town of Mill Valley.
Residents say Amazon has abandoned the beloved neighborhood staple that defined their community for more than three decades and are furious despite there being another store a mile away.
The California store first opened in 1992 and became a local institution where the town's 14,000 residents caught up in the aisles and kids grabbed snacks after school.
But after a rodent infestation and roof repairs forced a temporary shutdown over the summer, locals expected the market to reopen by fall. Instead, Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, pulled the plug, citing high repair costs.
Now the once-bustling market sits behind a chain-link fence, still bearing a 'temporarily closed' sign.
'All of us in the community have supported that store for years and years,' Jana Hildebrand, a Mill Valley resident of 30 years, told SF Gate.
'And now, when the community needs the support of a very powerful company with deep pockets, they are just walking away, saying it's too expensive to fix the building.'
Hildebrand said she bought her home in part because of its proximity to the store, a rare convenience in a town known for winding hillside roads.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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The Whole Foods on Miller Avenue in Mill Valley, California, now sits fenced off after closing permanently in late September
Some food for thought on a related note from a couple of years ago, FWIW...
https://www.reddit.com/r/wholefoods/comments/1asosvc/shrink/
And then there’s this, from January...
My father in law used to have a house in Berkeley. Those people don’t keep their houses up. When they would come to Leawood, Kansas where we lived, they would sneer, “Look how squeaky clean everything is.” As if we were the rubes. Also exclaiming about how much space we had. Lol. Because of course everything in California is so far superior. Snort.
Whole foods sucks....last 2 times I walked in the one in my town (that wss all but empty), I walked out empty handed......prices are stupid high.
I have no idea how that chain stays afloat.
Oh the horror!
Whole Foods= whole paycheck.
Home of rich hippies/trust fund brats. Rumored to be the birthplace of the first AWFUL Karen.
Good point.
Forced unionization = higher prices.
Higher prices = less patronage
Less patronage = less profit
Less profit = store closure
It’s not complicated.
Another Bezos owned concern.
It actually began in Texas ...
The Early Years
In 1978, twenty-five-year-old college dropout John Mackey and twenty-one-year-old Renee Lawson (Hardy), borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open the doors of a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin, Texas. When the couple got booted out of their apartment for storing food products there, they decided to simply live at the store. Since it was zoned commercial, there was no shower stall. Instead, they bathed in the Hobart dishwasher, which had an attached water hose.
Two years later, John and Renee partnered with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge SaferWay with their Clarksville Natural Grocery, resulting in the opening of the original Whole Foods Market on September 20, 1980. At 10,500 square feet and a staff of 19, this store was quite large in comparison to the standard health food store of the time.
Less than a year later, on Memorial Day in 1981, the worst flood in 70 years devastated the city of Austin. Caught in the flood waters, the store’s inventory was wiped out and most of the equipment was damaged. The losses were approximately $400,000 and Whole Foods Market had no insurance. Customers and neighbors voluntarily joined the staff to repair and clean up the damage. Creditors, vendors and investors all provided breathing room for the store to get back on its feet and it re-opened only 28 days after the flood.
Expansion
Beginning in 1984, Whole Foods Market began its expansion out of Austin, first to Houston and Dallas and then into New Orleans with the purchase of Whole Food Company in 1988. In 1989, we expanded to the West Coast with a store in Palo Alto, California....
https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company-info/whole-foods-market-history
I remember meeting a friend for lunch, at the Houston location, many moons ago ... she wanted me to check out the ‘natural’ make up and all of their produce.
I was hooked! 😂
California regs make it impossible to remodel. Thank you Pelosi/Nesome.
“despite there being another store a mile away. “
life is really tough sometimes when you’re an extremely wealthy elitist ...
Plenty of income, but only 14,000 people and on a peninsula without too many likely customers beyond that.
Oh Boo hoo.
My son lives near there and last Spring when we visited them, this was the store that HAD whatever it was that we were looking for. Placed an order for pickup, and there was no one around to help, so I went into the store to see about it. They told me to go back outside and they would bring it when ready. I tried to tell them that we had a text saying it WAS READY. Poor service.
It is amazing. There are two Whole Foods near each other, and another organic grocery store somewhere around there too. My son and his wife shop at all of them.
Image, image, image.
Posting from the Leawood Hen House. You’re right!
The horror of first world problems.
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