Whole Foods Market's Small-Format Store Coming to Hell’s Kitchen
Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market has revealed that its second Daily Shop grocery store will be located at 301 West 50th Street in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.
The natural and organic food retailer revealed this past March that it was introducing a new, quick-shop store format designed to provide customers in urban neighborhoods a convenient shopping experience with easier access to fresh, high-quality offerings. Dubbed Whole Foods Market Daily Shop, the format is set to open its first location, on New York City's Upper East Side at 1175 Third Avenue, this fall. Progressive Grocer reached out to the company to ask about the opening date for the Hell's Kitchen store, but it did not have any further information on the location to share at this time. Whole Foods did disclose that a third New York City location and a national rollout will follow.
The innovative smaller-store format will range between 7,000 to 14,000 square feet, or about a quarter to half the footprint of an average 40,000-square-foot store. Whole Foods Market Daily Shop stores will feature a variety of fresh, seasonal produce; prepared foods; and essential grocery items. Both of the newly revealed New York City locations will also feature Juice & Java, a venue providing coffee, tea, fresh-pressed juices, smoothies, sandwiches, soups and desserts.
Serving more customers through this smaller-format store is part of parent company Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores’ efforts to build a best-in-class shopping experience that meets a range of customer needs.
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News of the second Whole Foods Market Daily Shop location comes as the retailer celebrates the 20th anniversary of its New York flagship store. The 2004 opening of the Columbus Circle flagship store marked a major step in the company’s expansion in New York and transformed the city’s grocery offerings with natural and organic foods in the largest grocery store that the city had seen at that time.
Since then, Whole Foods has grown to 17 locations and more than 5,000 local associates in the New York City area.
Whole Foods currently has more than 530 stores in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, with more than 75 stores currently in development.
CEO Jason Buechel, alongside 70 associates, rang the Nasdaq opening bell on July 15 as part of Whole Foods’ anniversary celebration.
The Austin, Texas-based grocer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Seattle-based Amazon, which is No. 2 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Both Whole Foods and Amazon were named among PG’s Retailers of the Century. PG also named Whole Foods one of its 2024 Top 10 Sustainable Grocers.
