Whole Foods Market — Local services in Town of Brighton

I've been to this Whole Foods three times now. The store has been clean and visually inviting each visit. My highly trained service dog is always welcome. I've thankfully never been hassled there, and I appreciate that. I like that the aisles are wide and easily navigated.

I'm taking one star off, because the employees aren't particularly friendly or helpful. I've been a cashier at a few independent natural and organic food stores in both Boulder, Colorado and Nashville, Tennessee, and I was an Assistant Store Manager at one of them. I always helped train everyone from cashiers to stockers to deli staff filling food bars to ask customers if they were finding everything okay. Or at the very least, to make eye contact with guests, smile, and nod if not greet them! I would also have them offer shopping baskets to customers who had their hands full.

During my three visits to this location, I haven't had any of these things happen despite having very full hands (with a service dog no less!) during my second visit. Lastly, I had a few returns/exchanges my last visit a few days ago. I have my receipt somewhere but didn't feel like looking for it. And for some reason, the purchases didn't show on the app. I was honest with the customer service desk attendant and told them it was from over a month ago. He informed me I wouldn't be able to get credit for the items as their return policy had changed from 90 days to just 30.

In the case of such a major change, I would expect signs to have been posted around the store including at the desk. However, there were none. As a customer, this is confusing and caused me to lose money on two items that were new to me but gross and inedible, namely Prime Kitchen's avocado oil mayonnaise (and I typically like avocado oil) and Whole Foods 365 avocado yogurt dressing, which was thin and bland. Together, the items were $10. Lastly, I had a vegan blue cheese dressing to return. I had placed an Amazon Prime delivery order over a month ago and ordered Whole Foods 365 version. I said I would take a substitute if it wasn't available. However, the shopper chose a vegan dressing, which I don't eat, and it was $2 more expensive.

Thankfully, the desk attendant honored that exchange due to the circumstances. However, I also told them my returns/exchanges were delayed due to having recently moved as well as two deaths in my family within a few weeks (one expected and one unexpected.) Not only did he show no empathy upon hearing this information (!!), he didn't make an exception to the (new) return and exchange policy. I gladly would have chosen another mayonnaise that didn't have avocado oil as well as a Whole Foods 365 dressing I've had before and liked if that were the case.

I imagine this change has to do with Whole Foods being acquired by the profit-hungry Amazon. This was one of my fears once they were bought out. They gave it several years before making the change to ease customers in to the idea that nothing would be different. Yet, here we are. A 30 day return and exchange policy is virtually unheard of in a grocery store, from Wegman's to Target. It's not customer-friendly whatsoever, especially in today's busy world. At the end of the day, if such a big change is made, a store should publicize it and help educate its customers. And most definitely make an exception when there are extenuating circumstances.

Overall, I give this Whole Foods location 4 out of 5 stars due to the aforementioned reasons. My hope is that the social media team will help pass this on to management, so they can offer an apology and learn and grow from my experiences there. In that case, I would be happy to add...

I've now been to WF three times since it's opened and have had a chance to try a number of different products. The store is often derided as "Whole Paycheck" due to its high prices, but I think it has a number of positive attributes.

Pros:

1. Excellent hot foods bar - huge selection, lots of healthy options, and reasonable prices. Wegmans, take note!

2. Reasonable prices on some items (e.g., some produce, seafood, prepared foods, baby formula, some salad dressings, etc.). If you shop around, you can definitely find products that are not any more expensive than Wegmans or Whole Foods.

3. Their cookie bar has yummy treats (I've tried a few and all were very good, though on the sweeter side) and is the same price as Wegmans', if not slightly cheaper.

4. Their store brand hummus is very good (probably the best store-brand hummus I've brought). At $3.99 for a container, I do wish the container were slightly larger, but it is what it is.

5. Unlike Wegmans, they don't charge you for paper bags...

6. Beautiful store, wide aisles

Cons:

1. It's generally very expensive. $10 for a box of chicken nuggets? $6 for a loaf of bread? A sandwich in the prepared foods area goes for like $15-$17 (which I think includes sides). Moreover, they carry some of the same brands / products you see in Wegmans and other grocery stores, except at noticably marked up prices...It will be interesting to see if there is sustainable demand for such expensive groceries in this area, especially in the current economic environment.

2. They have lots of unique and interesting products but, following-up on the last comment, their high prices discourage me from wanting to take a chance and try them. So far, I've tried a few different products that I've found unsatisfactory: i) their Southwest Chicken Salad (prepared food section; costs $10 but is huuuge) - found it just very creamy but without much taste; ii) their cheese breadsticks; costs about $6-7 - again, doesn't have much tase; iii) vegetarian dan dan noodles (prepared food section; costs $7); generous portion but has a really weird taste. And the same goes for other product categories, such as salad dressings - they have a lot of interesting looking salad dressings, but at $7+ for some of them, I won't try them because of price.

3. The parking lot is weirdly designed. I could see lots of accidents / traffic jams happening in the store's vicinity. That being said, I've been to this store several times now in its first week of business and haven't had any issues getting in or out or finding parking.

Verdict: I'll mainly come back for their prepared food section and their hummus. Might try their produce section as well and their fresh fish - which look amazing (not cheap, but definitely look fresh,...

Updated Review and Reduced from 3 Stars to 2 Stars after trying more bakery items.

To re-cap, I was disappointed for them to choose Village Bakery as their partner. Village Bakery is just mediocre. There are better / great bakery places in Rochester like Flour City Bread Company, Amazing Grains or Jenny's Bakery.

I would say Village Bakery bakery quality matches Wholefood's bakery quality, aka equally bland. But for Wholefood's, they are OVERPRICED. They both tasted like a cheap factory made items.

For example, Wholefood's croissants. It costs 3 dollars; but it is not flaky, nor crisp, nor has any buttery taste at all. You could get slightly better quality croissants at Costco for 50 cents. For a 3 dollars croissant, that should be as good as the croissants from Flour City bakery. Flour City bakery made the best croissant in Rochester. They are flaky, crisp and has buttery taste. That is what a 3 dollars croissant should taste like. I would never pay 3 dollars for Wholefood's croissant; for that taste, it only worth 50 cents.

I still love Wholefood for their store brand 365 products. I would say Wholefood is a great place to go for their store brand items. They got some unique items like sauces (either store brand or 3rd party brand) which you cannot get elsewhere.

For me, I would stick to the store brand products and not the bakery items nor the hot food; not even the produce. If people want to get a good bakery items, the 3 locations I mentioned would be the best place to go, unless if Wholefood improve their bakery items. Or....

There is another store just a mile away, south, which has great bakery items, hot food and literally everything else ;) This place would be my 4th place to get great bakery items; plus they are much much cheaper but still premium quality for literally everything else.

Another example why the other place is better, the prepared fruits at Wholefood costs 11 dollars per pound while this other location only cost like 5 dollars per pound.

Like I said, Wholefood is great for their 365 store brand items and unique items you cannot get elsewhere. Everything else is just not worth the cost. Not sure why they sell everything like twice as much compare to other grocery stores in town. This is NOT NYC LOL.

I hope this place will last; I love the store brand, 365 products. I always go to Wholefood when travelling to NYC to get some of this unique products; now I can just get it anytime.

p/s: can you guy do something with the traffic? the traffic turning left into Wholefood, only lasted like 5 seconds, literally. Only 2 or 3 cars can make a turn. Just a bad...