Best fresh food market in Arlington, Massachusetts (MA) 2025

This is one of the smallest Whole Foods stores in the area; Cambridge and Medford offer bigger stores with more variety. This small urban market was a great place to run in quickly, pick up a few items for dinner, zip through three express lanes for customers with 12 items or less. No more. The express lanes are gone. They were replaced with a beverage display. Meanwhile, one of the regular registers was replaced with a cluster of self service checkouts. This afternoon, I got in a regular line, and the customer in front of me was attempting to buy some fruit that came in a plastic container without a PLU code. Everything came to a halt while the bagger went to the produce department to try to find the code for the cashier. No luck. While the cashier was waiting for a supervisor to resolve the unlabeled fruit, she suggested that I take my one item to the self-checkout. No. No. No. Whole Foods is an expensive store, and their prices dictate that they should provide enough customer service so that a customer can buy a few items and have a live, personable human being at the register. Bring back the express lanes. ~Paul

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