Whole Foods Market opens new store in Riverchase with hundreds waiting in line
Whole Foods Market opened its new 40,000-square-foot grocery store in Riverchase this morning, with hundreds of people lined up more than 200 yards when the doors opened at 9 a.m.
“This may be the most anticipated store opening since the Riverchase Galleria,” Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato told the crowd just before the doors slid open for the first customers. “We’re excited about the opening of the store and what it means for the city of Hoover.”
The Whole Foods store, at the southeast corner of U.S. 31 and Lorna Road, has been in the works for nearly three years. The Texas-based grocery chain is filling a space formerly held by Bruno’s and later Belle Foods before Belle filed for bankruptcy in mid-2013.
The developer of the shopping center, formerly called Riverchase Village and now designated as Whole Foods Market Plaza, spent millions of dollars tearing down the old grocery store and building a brand new structure in its place.
Jason Stonicher, the Whole Foods store team leader, said he and his staff are glad to be open for business.
“The community has turned out in great numbers for every event we’ve had, so we’re super excited to be here for them,” Stonicher said. “We’re open, and we’re ready.”
More than 1,000 people turned out for a Whole Foods block party on Sunday, and people started started lining up for this morning’s opening before 7 a.m.
Some of the first ones in line had to leave before the store opened at 9 a.m., but Brenda Avery, who lives in Hoover’s Lake Cyrus community, was the second in line when the doors opened.
She is a big Whole Foods fan and is glad she no longer has to go all the way to the Whole Foods along U.S. 280 in Mountain Brook, she said.
“I’ve been waiting ever since they announced they were going to open it,” Avery said.
She particularly thinks Whole Foods has better products without all the preservatives so many foods have, she said. Every item sold in the store will be free of artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, preservatives and hydrogenated fats, the company said.
Deshanta Coleman, who lives in an apartment off John Hawkins Parkway, said she, too, has been going to the Whole Foods store in Mountain Brook. She likes it, but based on her first visit, the Riverchase store appears to have more vegan options, she said. She also likes all the various stations for prepared foods and the fact she gets to try products before she takes them home, she said.
The store at 3780 Riverchase Village includes a Revelator coffee bar, Hops 'n' Sauce beer and a barbecue venue with grab-and-go barbecue bowls and gourmet soul food offerings such as buttermilk-smothered pork chops, fried catfish, maple roasted yams and burnt end black-eyed peas.
Other specialties made in-house will include scratch-made Lane cake, a selection of meatballs, ready-to-cook breaded shrimp and hand-tossed, wood-fired pizzas. The store also will have a do-it-yourself beauty apothecary that allows customers to create their own beauty care regiments with ingredients such as lavender and shea butter in bulk.
There also are custom meat cuts, a fresh seafood market and a juice bar with cold-pressed juices prepared fresh in the store.
The Riverchase Whole Foods plans to employ 120 to 150 people, Stonicher said. They already have hired at least 115 people but are still looking for more employees, he said.
People can apply for jobs at wholefoodsmarket.com/careers.