Scenes from the Whole Foods opening this morning

I made it to the new Whole Foods at Third and Third bright an early for the opening this morning, but not early enought to actually make it into the entry area where they held the "breaking bread" ceremony. I stood for about 20 minutes in the snow and freezing cold with about 50 other schmucks, hearing only snippets from inside, like Marty Markowitz bellowing something about "Quinoa and organic rugelach." When they finallly opened the doors for shopping, Marty stood at the entrance shaking hands as people told him how much they'd miss him. "Not as much as I'm going to miss all of this," said a forlorn-looking Marty.

They did, indeed break a lot of bread, including some tasty-looking challah.

Signs for all the veggies and fruits tell you where they came from, exotic places like California and Peru.

The guys working the Fish Market chanted "Let's go seafood," so hey, good for them for being psyched about their jobs.

But the best part is the open window onto the butchering area. 

So, what can I say? It's a Whole Foods. A really nice, ginormous supermarket. Booyah. It does seem like Fairway could be fucked. Why drive all the way to Red Hook when this is basically the equivalent and so much closer? I'm not sure I can think of a reason, much as I enjoy the view of the Statue of Liberty when I exit the Fairway parking lot. Plus, the Whole Foods is set up like every other sanely designed grocery store, where you can access every aisle from the front of the store, unlike Fairway, where nothing is more annoying than getting to the last aisle and realizing you forgot to something in the fruits and veggies section. 

Who know, maybe I'll finally suck it up and join the Co-op.