Spotlight On: Whole Foods Market

An 80,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market, the company’s largest store, opened yesterday in downtown Austin, creating a truly unique shopping experience. With a roof garden plaza, a variety of delectable food stations and five sit-down dining areas, the deep-rooted Austin store has transformed from a local natural and organic supermarket to a major culinary destination for visitors and locals alike.

Above the store lies a 25,000-square-foot roof garden and plaza with 200 shaded seats, as well as a performance space for speakers and entertainers, and a children’s playscape. The market presents live music during weekday happy hours.

Whole Foods stocks 1,800 wine varieties, 800 types of beer, more than 600 cheese varieties and 150 daily fresh seafood selections.

A plethora of food stations fill the store with names befitting of the market’s location: Lamar Street, Fifth Street Seafood, North Side Trattoria and Sixth Street Sushi.

Customers also enjoy hundreds of pre-made food selections or customize orders for on-site chefs to create. The five dining areas seat 200 diners inside and 200 outside.

Parking problems are alleviated by a 775-space parking garage, accessed via a cart-friendly escalator or grocery valet. At the valet, bags are tagged, placed in a box on a dumbwaiter to the garage on a conveyer belt. Show the valet your claim ticket and he or she will load the groceries into your car.

The Austin location serves as Whole Foods’ corporate headquarters, with a six-story tower above the store accommodating workspace for 500 employees. The company started in Austin in 1980 and now operates 167 stores across the U.S., as well as in Canada and England.

Whole Foods Market, at Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard, is open from 8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. The coffee window opens at 6 a.m.

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Whole Foods Market