Whole Foods opens in Shaw
NEWS | July 23, 2021
Washington, DC
Washington Business Journal | Whole Foods opens in Shaw with in-house Spike Mendelsohn restaurant
A new 46,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market opened in D.C. Thursday with a Spike Mendelsohn restaurant located inside.
The Whole Foods at 967 Florida Ave. NW in Shaw is part of a mixed-use development, The Wren, that will have 433 apartment units, including 132 units of affordable housing. The Wren at 965 Florida Ave. NW broke ground in 2017 and is a joint venture between MRP Residential, JBG Smith (NYSE: JBGS), Fundrise and Ellis Development. The residential is expected to deliver in the fourth quarter this year.
Inside the Whole Foods lies Mendelsohn’s PLNT Burger restaurant, a plant-based fast-casual spot that first launched in Silver Spring. This store comes less than a month after the chain, which has the backing of Honest Tea founder Seth Goldman, opening the first location outside Greater Washington in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
“We are super excited about opening our fifth PLNT Burger inside Whole Foods Market,” Mendelsohn said in a statement. “This is the first PLNT Burger location that was specifically designed and opened with our store in mind.”
The Shaw Whole Foods provides a selection of options from local businesses such as fish from Ivy City Smokehouse, beer from Right Proper Brewing and Atlas Brew Works and pastries from Sweet & Natural in Mount Rainier.
The project near 9:30 Club and Howard University has been in the works for more than five years, with the developers first lining up a Harris Teeter grocery store before switching gears and landing Whole Foods.
The Austin-based grocer owned by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has more than 20 stores in Greater Washington, including one in Glover Park that has been closed for three years. Whole Foods is undertaking a full renovation of that store after a protracted court fight with its landlord, though it’s not clear when it will reopen. We’ve reached out to Whole Foods for more information on when Glover Park will reopen and will update this story if we hear back.
The most recent new store opening in the region for Whole Foods was its mid-Atlantic flagship store at The Boro in Tysons.
During the Covid-19 pandemic alone, Whole Foods has opened four other locations across the country in Austin, Colorado, New York City and Baltimore last month.
Whole Foods is the ninth-largest grocer in Greater Washington, with 4.46% market share in 2018, according to WBJ research. It posted $732.9 million in metro-area sales that year according to Food World.