W S.
Yelp
Executive summary for aroused Austinites: if tuber bundling and foil deprivation are less important to you than shopping among the pierced and dyed, keep lobbying for Trader Joes. Otherwise, stick to Whole Foods.
I spent a few days within walking distance of a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods in Santa Fe. Whole Foods has a huge, extravagant store in my hometown of Austin, Texas. There is no Trader Joe's in Austin, but an unfounded rumor of its imminent arrival was enough to send a tiny but vociferous minority of Austinites into food shopping arousal.
I visited both stores with a shopping list for a camping trip to Villanueva State Park. This was a surgical strike; I wanted buy smoked sausage, eggs, milk, butter, shredded cheddar cheese, spinach, a few red potatoes, a yellow onion, some mokka kashi bars, some zip-lock bags, and some heavy-duty aluminum foil. I was not there to roam the aisles for hours, bask in their respective eclectic culinary offerings, or contemplate their philosophical approach to food and life.
Trader Joe's had no smoked sausage whatsoever. They had red potatoes, but only in big bags; I wanted four red potatoes, not thirty. There were no mokka kashi bars, nor did I see aluminum foil.
Whole Foods had exactly one package of smoked sausage, which was all I needed. They had individual red potatoes. They had exactly one type of aluminum foil; I decided to buy it despite the risk that my wife would scorn me for buying "light duty" material instead of the heavy duty stuff. (She forgave me.)
Whole Foods did not have mokka kashi bars. In fact, as far as I can tell they are banned from the shelves of Santa Fe grocery stores. I did not have time to beg for mokka kashi bars on Craigslist, nor did I try to buy them off the back of a truck in a dark alley in the seamy side of Santa Fe. We camped without them. My wife forgave me for this too.
Finally, despite being in surgical strike mode, I noticed the following. Whole Foods got some bad press a few years ago for banning their employees from wearing facial piercings. The Trade Joe's employees definitely looked more pierced and hair-dyed than the Whole Foods employees. I think pieced and hair-dyed workers deserve a shot at grocery store jobs if they want them, and I suppose if I were pierced and hair-dyed, I might prefer to food-shop among my own kind.
