Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year, citing worker safety

Re:Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year,... by wpietri on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @06:21PM (#35532432)

Cue also the people who are shocked at how terrible it has gotten, and how that means it can be blamed on the people they were already very inclined to blame!

I've lived in San Francisco more than 20 years at this point. Some things get better, some things get worse, but overall I'd say it's about the same. I used to work a couple blocks from there, and I just ran past it on Sunday, and the neighborhood was always kinda sketchy. And just a couple of blocks away is a pleasant, upscale grocery store, Harvest Urban Market, that has done just fine.

So I suspect this is something more about Whole Foods than any surprising change. E.g., did the pandemic and the resulting drop in the downtown population in the area put a whole in the store's profitability?

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Re:Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year,... by kelp on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @06:34PM (#35532555)

According to a posting on yelp (https://www.yelp.com/biz/harvest-urban-market-san-francisco) Harvest Urban Market was shut down recently by the city due to major vermin infestation.

Also it seems like they were threatening to close in 2019 due to exactly the kinds of issues that Whole Foods says is causing their closure: https://abc7news.com/south-of-market-sf-san-francisco-soma/5...

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Re:Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year,... by wpietri on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @10:16PM (#35534262)

Thanks for the update! I'm sorry to hear it.

It reminds me of working around there 2010-12. It was very sketchy then, too. I recall my cofounder going out looking for a FedEx delivery that had gone awry, something important coming from one of our investors. He came back laughing because his founder-looking-for-vital-papers energy was misunderstood by the people across the street. Before he could even say anything, they said the methadone clinic didn't open until noon and he'd just have to wait.

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Re:Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year,... by corbulo on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @06:32PM (#35532536)

Its about the same?

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Re:Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year,... by dilyevsky on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @07:37PM (#35533204)

Head meets sand. I’ve worked right across the street from that WF (orpheum building), saw it went up. Since covid that whole area turned in a little snippet of war-torn country. There’s just no way anyone sane would live or even go near that without a pressing need and i guess $13 eggs are just not that alluring

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