Foodie haven opens in Austin... Local Mom & Pops not so pleased.

(an artist sketch of the perpetrator)

Well... I wanted to have tons of pretty pictures for you today, but the wife has lent the camera to that nice Dahlmer boy next door. He's such a quite little kid... keeps to himself a lot and enjoys digging holes in his back yard.

But seriously tho. When I get my camera back, I'm gonna give the world it's first peek at the WHOLE FOODS LANDMARK STORE (always to be said with an echo effect per their identity package). Kidding. Anyway, this place is really posh. Lots of organic fruits and veggies. Exotic flowers. Pretty displays. It's all quite overwhelming. Lester, you practically live across the street. You'll have to give me your take on it.

I was very impressed. What was I NOT impressed with? Well, for one... It was MAD packed in there. Yeah, yeah... I know, "It's the grand opening of the LANDMARK STORE store store store." But I was hoping that it would have been SOOOO big that I wouldn't have seen another person, except maybe someone at a info booth with a map and a compass telling me where to find the organic soysauce. I'm telling you; every hipster and high-roller in town was there. The parking lot was full of Bikes and Hummers and CR-V's (the unofficial SUV of Austin). It was so packed, EVEN the parking lot of the old Whole Foods across the street was PACKED! AND IT WAS CLOSED! Maybe there was a big sale at Book People, who knows... but if you had dreads or a Rolex, you were in da house!

So... What else was wrong? Well, not wrong for me, due to the convenience, but inside the store there were a bunch of little islands, for lack of a better description, that had specialties that you would normally see at a little mom and pop shop. There was one that had ROASTED NUTS. That's unusual for a Whole Foods... I'm sure the peeps at AUSTIN NUTS where not so *snicker snicker* NUTS about that, now were they? And there was a COFFEE BEANS area (just like before), and a HAND MADE SOAP area, and a BBQ Pit (I'm sure that Rudy's was smokin' *giggle giggle* about that!) and on and on and on. Enough handcrafted goods to kill almost every mom and pop in a 8 mile radius. I'll document them all when I get my camera back. It was kinda sad in a way... But from a mass consumers point of view, it was tah-die-for. There was a GIANT sea food area, and a MASSIVE meat area. There was tiny little island resturants all over the north side of the building. Very creative and hip little spot. There was a roof deck where you could slide on the playscape (please let the kids go first) and a band playing salsa, son, rumba, mambo and they were quite nice (didn't catch the name though). The sound system was impressive as well.

Will I shop there? Yes. Will I still go to Randal's and pick up my Austin Nuts? Yes. And yes I will still drive to Rudy's (my Saturday morning church) for BBQ beef breakfast tacos. I only bathe like once a week, so I'm not too worried about the hand-made-soap thing. But, I hope we can all get along and still pay rent at the end of the day. Austin's heartbeat is driven by independence. You get too much conglomeration and Super-store syndrome going on, and well, we could turn into another (insert stinky-town name here).

BTW. I saw a guy holding a sign out front that said "Whole foods is destroying our health". I wonder what that was about.

Cheers until next time.