Boise Whole Foods manager expects second store in two years

The Boise Whole Foods store has exceeded expectations since opening in 2012, store team leader Bruce Green said, and the region is destined for a second store, probably in Meridian,within the next two years.

“There is a (sales) number the store needs to get to for a second store,” Green told an Urban Land Institute Idaho lunch group on May 13. “We’re more than halfway to that number. We have a great trajectory.”

Boise traffic at Whole Foods is different from that at the Austin-based chain’s stores in 42 states, Canada and the United Kingdom. Boise produces bigger weekday customer counts. Whole Foods usually see the most traffic on weekends.

Boise Whole Foods customers also buy more prepared foods compared to groceries, Green said. The store has a kitchen staff of 45 to 65 employees.

“People say ‘You have a restaurant with a grocery store attached,’” said Green, who has been the store’s team leader since it opened. “People eat here three times a day.”

Whole Foods is a lunch stop for people at the University of Idaho Water Center across the street, St. Luke’s Heath System two blocks away, the Ada County Courthouse down the street, and even Boise State University across the river..

Whole Foods has 417 stores. Boise’s sees far more people Monday through Friday than most other Whole Foods stores do. Its weekend count is lower, but those shoppers spend more on groceries.

“Now Saturday and Sundays are the biggest days of the week (in sales numbers), but the transaction numbers are the lowest,” Green said.

The average weekday shopper spends $23, while a weekend shopper drops $35, Green said.

A huge share of the Whole Foods customer base lives within 5 miles of the store or east of Maple Grove Road or Glenwood Street. It’s also a popular destination drive for people living in Cascade, Donnelly, Coeur d’Alene and Sun Valley.

“We have Sun Valley customers who come once a month. We know their names,” Green said.

Boise architecture firm CSHQA designed the Boise Whole Foods as well as about 10 other Whole Foods in the company’s Rocky Mountain division that includes Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas and New Mexico. CSHQA also designed remodels for more than a dozen others.

“We tried to fit it into the community,” said Patty Norberg, a CSHQA principal, said about the Boise design. “It’s a turn of the (20^th) century kind of look while maintaining a sense of modernism with the glass cube.”