Sure, it's a cute jab, but 8 WFs in an entire city is not that many. Even if you have a car, there are large swaths of the city (Richmond, Sunset), where a WF is a bit of a slog during regular traffic (and worse during rush hour). And of course, many city dwellers don't have cars, so having to lug groceries up SF's famously hilly streets is not great for more than a fraction of a mile or so.
The actual city of SF is not that large. Something like 800k people. Not very big of a footprint either. 8 is no small number.
Austin TX has 964K, is where Whole Foods was founded, and has 5 according to the locator on their website.
Los Angeles has almost 4M people and has 7. (As well as ones in various other cities that are intertwined with the weird geographic footprint, but also 4 times as many people in the "official" city limits for those 7.)
This seems like a good opportunity to plug SF's great independent grocers. Please do not sleep on The Good Life Grocery, Rainbow, or the several Gus' Community Market locations around town, not to mention all the other small grocers around the city.
Some more great places in my local riding area: Midtown Market in Dogpatch (pricey but really good produce), and Glen Canyon Market, which was recently acquired by Gus. A cute small grocery store with a butcher counter just opened near Portrero, and there's also Avedano's butcher on Cortland Ave (near a Good Life) and Olivier's in Dogpatch.
Swiping my hand over a mystery panel to pay for my groceries is very cool at WF, but there's no shortage of great places to restock the fridge and pantry all over SF, and where the money you spend is going more to local places and locals.
Good thing there are other groceries and farmer's markets and Prime delivery to fill the gap left by the one WF closing then. Living in the Sunset, yes it's true if I want to go to a Whole Foods I'd have to either drive, or bike or take public transit to the one over by the Haight, the one down at Stonestown mall or the one on Upper Market. But I don't usually because the Safeway is within walking distance and that's good enough for me most of the time and if not there's Other Avenues, Sunset Super, 22nd and Irving, and Gus's all relatively close by just to name a few off the top of my head.
Haight WF is about as close as Masonic Trader Joe’s (and somehow easier to park at) for most in the richmond and sunset - though Calmart is better than both.
Andronico’s was much better than both before safeway took over
