Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Once you bite into a Great A&P 150th anniversary chocolate chunk cookie, that taste will make you forever foresake Whole Paycheck.

Head on over to any A&P Fresh and rediscover the origins of foodie paradise, great food at fantastic savings.

Can't beat that A&P!!!

Dear Whole Foods Santa Fe,

Please do not lecture me about "looking around me, and remembering where I am, and asking myself if the product in question has dyes in it" if I inquire if you might have the new dark chocolate m&ms for my homemade trail mix, especially not if I have 3 bags of TVP (texturized vegetable protein) in my hands. OBVIOUSLY I KNOW WHERE I AM.

And then to Whole Foods Union Square--

Please bring back peppermint bark during the holiday season. Even if you run out, your staff will at least have seen it (and hopefully experienced it!) and will not stare at me in befuddlement when I ask if they have any in stock.

Please stop trying to convince me that catfish on sale at $7.99 a pound is some great deal.
In fact, i don't get your seafood program at all. Fresh wild caught seafood at one place for $12.99 a lb. is no less fresh and wild than yours at $18.99 lb. Unless you know of an organic ocean everyone else doesn't know about.

Train you service staff, and get a clue!!!

Here are a few of my recent grievances (if I were to go back further than two months, this would be 10 pages long, at least):

I stopped in for Pancetta at the deli counter the other day and my husband and I were repulsed by the rancid smell while standing there. Then, as we waited, we noticed rotting broccoli in a salad at the front of the display case, and a number of other disgusting offenses. Gross!!! Not what one would expect from an over-priced grocery store that touts freshness. Furthermore, the person behind the counter had no idea how to slice Pancetta, and had to use the obviously filthy meat slicer, after which she wiped the debris from other meats off my Pancetta right in front of me. Again, gross!!! Why hasn't the Department of Health shut you down???

Also, we bought a few dozen oysters from your seafood dept. recently, and one of your staff was supposed to shuck and package them for us. Turns out he filled it with slushie, wet ice - too high, and set it under a hot lamp to wait for us, so when we returned eight minuted later, they were swimming in two inches of chlorinated water, and covered in debris from the uncleaned bottom of the shells. In other words - inedible. The cashier was the first to notice, but of course when we went back to the seafood dept., moments later, there were no more oysters left. He ruined all of them. Those poor suckers died pointlessly, and we did not have oysters for our soiree. Lame!

I could go on about how your bakery practices mirror those of a typical Safeway (recycling should not apply to baked goods - yuck!), or how every time I want to special order something I commonly use, no one seems to be interested or able to help (so, you lose my biz as I go home and order it online, instead), or how every time I go to a service counter there are several staff members standing around chatting with each other about nothing for minutes on end before helping, and then act put-upon by the nuisance of an actual paying customer requiring assistance, which happens almost every time I shop at your lame store. But, since the managers are often guilty of the same behavior, what is the point?

The point? I now only shop at Whole Foods when I can find no other option, and then I shop there begrudgingly, and only for the item(s) I cannot find elsewhere.

Whole Foods - you stink!!! Literally.

You have driven out all the small guys and replaced them with garbage, bad service, and over-inflated prices. Furthermore, you have aided in the lowering of "organic" standards, and pushed all of the small producer's products off of your shelves, replacing them with big corporate products, because you are nothing but a sell-out! You are the WalMart of "health food" stores!!

I look forward to the day when I no longer have any reason to set foot into your disgraceful, big-box-style, warehouse of disappointment.

Sincerely,

~ Paula

Whole Foods, or at least the one near me, both bakes and carries completely inedible bread. The rolls are too hard for anything, the prepackaged bread has no flavor, and their baked loaves are horrid and flavorless. And don't even try to find a decent hot dog or hamburger bun. They have one variety of each and they're overly huge, dry, and inexplicably oily and wet on the outside.

Bread is the only reason I make the occasional trek over to Wegman's.

Central Market rules!

Dear Whole Foods - your Chana Masla and saffron rice on the hot bar are really good. Congrats. Also, I copied your fresh salsa recipe and I make it at home; thanks for having it on the label!

PS: please carry Sweet Leaf tea in New York! Ex Texans miss our Sweet Leaf!!

@carriebwc: yes!

@missvenuz: That's my parents' WFM! I hadn't been since it was converted, and it really is basically the same. Except for now they carry like 40% fewer baked goods. I definitely cried myself to sleep over this.

And @greentwist, a trip to Houston is not complete for me unless there's a run to Central Market. California Connection is the icing on the cake. The WFM in Houston can't compare! It's only a matter of time until HEB figures this out and expands into new markets. I hope.

Never fear! They probably have a waiting list. You should probably call ahead and cancel so that some happy couple will get your table!

Please stock every food item that exists. Put a store on every block in every city everywhere in the world. Make tuna salad with onions, without onions, with mayo, without mayo, with celery, without celery, with pickles, without pickles, with tuna, without tuna and every combination of the above. Do this for every item you carry. Charge $.01 for everything. Don't let anyone into the store unless they sign a contract that they will buy something. I hate it when they look at something but don't buy it. Have a time limit on how long someone can look at an item so that they stay out of my way. Only carry food from producers that hand massage every item before it's packaged. Make sure that each and every item in the store has a price tag on it ($.01 of course). Make sure that every employee knows every price ($.01, remember) of every item and please have one of them meet me at the door and walk around the store with me in case I have a question or can't figure out the price of something ($.01, but I might forget). Only carry seafood that doesn't smell like seafood. Make sure it smells like flowers. Provide free babysitting, free delivery, free chef services and please pick me up and drop me off at home. Use one bag per item, but be sure to only use one bag for my entire order. And for heaven's sake, hire some people who are mind readers so I don't have to tell them what I want. Thank you.

Yuck. The reason why this is classless is that El Bulli chooses to price their menu that the restaurant operates at a loss (apparently they make their profit through book sales). They obviously could charge a whole lot more before they'd start having problems getting reservations. To claim that money, that El Bulli has refused to take for themselves, isn't just parasitic--it's deeply disrespectful to Adria and his staff.

I'd guess that it's legal to sell reservations, but I'm also pretty sure that restaurants have no legally binding obligation to honor any reservation (whether you made it yourself, or especially if you bought it from someone).

Here's a Guardian article discussing the economics of El Bulli:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/futureoffood/story/0,,1969713,00.html

@produce, I get what you're saying, but it just reminded me of that car dealer. Just because I can afford more than the market price doesn't mean I'm willing (or stupid enough) to pay it.

Seems to me, though, that if someone had the funds, they'd simply hire someone to get the reservations for them (personal assistant, perhaps), rather than buying reservations from some unknown person on eBay. It's like buying a Rolex from a beach vendor.

Oooo...I better get my bid in!