Whole Foods Market St Paul

I have been ordering the vegan Thanksgiving meal from Whole Foods' catering service for the past four years. To order, visit the Whole Foods website, click on "Catering", and look for the "Vegan Holiday" option. The meal is called "Vegan Meal for 2", but I always get 3-4 servings out of it, and it is well worth the $39.99 price. You must place your order in advance, pick everything up before the holiday, and then cook it at home. The food has been consistently delicious every year. This year's meal includes Pumpkin Curry Soup, Mushroom Root Vegetable en Croûte as the entrée, Roasted Butternut Squash with Cranberries, Sage Roasted Fingerlings with Garlic Parsley Sea Salt Cracked Pepper, Green Beans, and Mushroom Gravy. Additionally, I ordered an extra side of Cranberry Orange Sauce. I was pleasantly surprised to find a vegan half pumpkin pie for sale at the bakery counter.

I used to be quite thrilled with this WFM. Although it tends to be expensive, it carries a large variety of vegan goods (some that were hard to find elsewhere , has delightful staff, and has a wonderful prepared salad bar with a flavorful variety of prepared grain salads, roasted vegetables, proteins, etc. And then Amazon bought WFM. Because, you know, Jeff Bezos only controls a few percent of the US economy why not buy up more of it? (While he tries to portray himself as a good guy, he recently cut health insurance to part time workers. So I looked around, and I realized that there were getting to be more and more options for buying vegan products. The co ops have been stepping up their games, Fresh Thyme can be pretty decent, and so can local chain Fresh Natural (sadly, they've retrenched and are now only in Shoreview and Hudson . I can live just fine without you, Jeff Bezos, and keep my money in the community or at least the region! You bought it in August 2017, and I've only been there once since then.

Like any other Whole Foods, there's a great selection (some genuinely healthy food and quite a bit of fake-healthy stuff), with almost everything absurdly overpriced beyond all reason, but the people are friendly and the atmosphere is nice. Ample free parking in the garage.

I don't typically choose Whole Foods/Amazon as my first choice for spending money. Nonetheless, I sometimes stop by when I need a few items in a hurry. The vegan slices are reasonably priced and easy to find. The vegan brownies are also a nice addition.

This restaurant is a cynical attempt to cash in on the co-op aesthetic. (Updated from a previous review on 2018-04-12)