On a trip to Austin a few weeks ago I visited the flagship store of Whole Foods, which is located near the frog design office in downtown. It’s in the building that also houses their headquarters, and it’s pretty spectacular in an over-the-top kind of way.

If you’ve been into a recently built Whole Foods then the aesthetic will be familiar, this one is just larger. Much larger. It’s hard to convey the size in pictures as the way the space is carved up it doesn’t feel like a huge warehouse, it’s full of alleys and neighborhood. But it’s truly gigantic.

This supersizing extends to the display cases as well, as you can see in the pictures below. They are similar to the ones you’ll find in your local Whole Foods…except three times longer. And the variety of specialty prepared foods at different stations is amazing. I can imagine it being a difficult store to do your regular shopping in, as the layout is higgledy-piggledy (intentionally so I’m sure to get you to wander around). But it’s fun to visit.

Austin isn’t that huge of a city and I find it hard to believe that there are enough customers every day to justify the quantities of food they put out fresh (especially the prepared foods). Hopefully they are living up to their eco-credo and not throwing it out every day…

Here are a few pics. Click on them to get larger versions. 

The store is in the company HQ

The entrance
Lots of prepared foods at different stations

 
Fresh as well as prepared fish

Well executed displays

Mmm, BBQ. This is Austin, after all

Like your Whole Foods meatcase…but bigger!

More chocolate than you can shake a stick at