Many customers who jammed into the new Whole Foods Market Detroit the morning of its debut exuded a kind of mass glee: the release of years-long frustration of having to go to the suburbs to shop at a national grocer.
I lived in Detroit for two years, and at least every other week we had to drive 11 miles north to get to a Trader Joes. There are some things that you just couldn't find in the city. It seems almost sad that a grocery store can elicit such a response, but this is going to affect a large number of people. I would have been at this store every week.
Heck yes it is. I go shopping for two weeks worth of groceries at Meijer for less than a hundred bucks. I go to Whole Foods for a loaf of bread, get to the register with that and a few other items to fill one brown paper bag and it's like $80 every time. I don't even have the makings of a full meal in there half the time. I am always puzzled when I walk out of there it seems. I will say this though, everything from there is pretty amazing. The difference is palpable from produce to breads to selection on just about every food category.
It's true. WF will cost you about 40% more than what you will spend at Krogers, but with Wayne State University and the medical centers, there are actually a large number of people with that buying power in the area it is located. It will be interesting to see how they do. In every discussion about living into Detroit, four concerns are always mentioned: the schools, crime, a lack of grocery stores, and car insurance rates. This knocks one off the list.