TOUR: Whole Foods Market - West Ashley, Charleston, SC

Whole Foods Market
Opened: 2018

Previous Tenants: none

Location: 1125 Savannah Hwy, West Ashley, Charleston, SC

Photographed: January 2022

This, folks, is a world-record store. Or at least I'm pretty sure it was -- for fastest store tour ever photographed. It took me exactly five and a half minutes to capture a full store tour and use the bathroom in this store. Mostly because I had family members (who I'd already dragged to Doscher's, which they admitted was an interesting store) with me, and we were only here to use the bathroom while passing through.

But let's backtrack for a minute. A&P built a store in this strip mall back in the 50s or early 60s, which was expanded to a Centennial in the late 60s or early 70s. In 1974, it became Doscher's IGA, which has continued operating but is closing this month. Whole Foods opened here in 2018, and politely coexisted with Doscher's for four years.

At 43,000 square feet, this Whole Foods is much larger than Doscher's but around the same size as many of the mainstream supermarkets around here. In my opinion, this is a particularly beautiful Whole Foods. I find this decor to be extremely appealing, energetic and colorful.

Produce is in the first aisle, shown here looking towards the front of the store. Meat and seafood are in the back right corner, with dairy on the rest of the back wall. The first few aisles are HABA and the last few are frozen, then the deli/prepared foods/bakery aisle is the last one on the far left side of the store.

As we can see, the experience in this Whole Foods is the complete opposite of Doscher's. But it lacks some of the specialty and local products (like the smoked meats and small producers) that Doscher's is full of.

In other words, this Whole Foods is beautiful, but it's a Whole Foods. Doscher's is something really local and unique.

That said, this is one of my favorite Whole Foods I've been to. I've visited a few in New Jersey and New York City that are pretty exceptional too, but those will have to wait until we circle back around through that area (which will be...a long time).

Looking across the back wall back towards the produce side of the store.

No coffin freezers here, something I've commented on in other Whole Foods.

An incredibly beautiful bakery and cheese area in the back left corner of the store. The textures and lettering here are gorgeous.

And the usual prepared foods and deli selections are in front of them, with the cafe in the front left corner.

Here we're looking across the front end towards produce, and for a shot in the other direction...

What a beautiful store, and like Doscher's I'm very glad I got to photograph it at night when the stores are empty and I can really capture the appearance of the interior. Well, this might be a world record for speed of photographing but it's also up there for speed of writing a tour, as this one was under 15 minutes for me. And that's a good thing because I'm coming to you from a late Wednesday night in April 2022, and I'm exhausted. So I'm gonna sign off for the night, and hopefully I'll be less tired by the time you're actually reading this in June. Anyhow, tomorrow we're headed east for another former A&P here on The Market Report!