Whole Foods Opens Online-Only Store in Brooklyn

In Industry City, Brooklyn, Whole Foods Market has opened an online-only store that you can’t shop in. It’s the company’s first ever permanent, online-only store in Brooklyn. In recent years, when you entered a Whole Foods grocery store in New York City you might be struck by something odd after a while: most of the “shoppers” were actually “Whole Foods Market Team Members,” pulling items for delivery customers.

When Amazon bought the grocery chain and introduced PrimeNow delivery for Whole Foods, this phenomenon seemed to increase. In the early days of the pandemic, it became nearly impossible to get a delivery slot with New York City residents scrambling to stock up goods without going outside. As such, it makes sense that Whole Foods would introduce an online-only store, nicknamed a “dark” store, which a spokesman for the company tells Untapped New York will allow them “to better serve the community and meet the growing demand for grocery delivery.” They also tell us that they’ve “hired hundreds of Whole Foods Market Team Members and other applicants throughout the NYC area, who will be dedicated to preparing orders for grocery delivery, enabling us to reach more customers than ever before.”

Photo Katherine Marks/Whole Foods Market

Located at 167 41st St, the Whole Foods online-only store has glass sliding doors, like a real store, but you have to check-in as a worker when you enter. It has Whole Foods Market-branded shopping carts. Social distancing and directional stickers show people how to navigate the store. Items are displayed on shelves with pricing stickers. But there are also stations set up to bag and tag the orders. Workers use a smartphone to see the items they need to fulfill and complete the orders. Each bag gets a bar code, is scanned by the workers, and placed on a shelf ready to get delivered.

Photo Katherine Marks/Whole Foods Market

Industry City is located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The former shipping, warehouse, and manufacturing facility was redeveloped into a mixed-use facility that includes retail stores (outlets for ABC Home & Design, Restoration Hardware, et al.), small batch distilleries like Brooklyn Kura and Standard Wormwood which have tasting rooms, a food hall, and other manufacturing spaces.