I’m sort of embarrassed to admit what I did last week. Because I am a weirdo and enjoy grocery shopping more than a normal person should, I made a night out of it. You can’t blame me though, I live 10 minutes from the wondrous glory that is the Lincoln Park Whole Foods [15150 N. Kingsbury], the third-largest Whole Foods store in the world. This is not your average grocery store. It is the gargantuan mother of all grocery stores. Sure, you can pick up milk and eggs but why stop there when you can hit up…
- Da’Vine Wine Bar [totally acceptable to sip a glass of wine as you shop]
- 1550 Bar [complete with nightly specials such as Trivia Night]
- Mix-and-Match Cookie and Trail Mix Stations
- Make-your-own Bath Salt Station
- Make-your-own Peanut/Cashew/Almond Butter Station
- Seven in-store eateries [fresh sushi, bakery, deli, and more]
- Rooftop yoga class
- Nightly cooking classes
+ so much more
…all under one [massive] roof.
This beautiful behemoth is truly something to behold. I’ve taken both my brother and sister to check it out when they visited me and they were blown away too. My sister and I were lucky enough to score seats at the bustling wine bar and enjoyed wine flights and prime people watching. There were couples on dates, guys catching up over a pint, girlfriends with glasses of champagne. All in the middle of a grocery store – who’d a thunk it.
I wanted to share some photos of my shopping trip with you, and, me being the responsible blogger that I am, called ahead to get the OK from Whole Foods to take some photos. With some minor stipulations, they welcomed me with open arms. Without further ado…
[the sheer volume of everything is astounding]
[endless rows of fat, juicy heirloom tomatoes]
[lifetime supply {and then some} of carrot juice]
[fancy soap station]
[bath salt bar]
[pellegrino as far as the eye can see]
[had to do it]
A few things that came home with me…
[my favorite tea]
[freshly ground 100% almonds... it was warm as it came out of the grinder!]
[my new obsession: black truffle oil... a bit of a splurge at $12 for a small bottle but you can use it in everything and a little goes a long way. i've added it to mac + cheese and eaten it just by itself with whole-grain bread]
[icelandic style yogurt is very thick and has a TON of protein]
[farm fresh eggs you literally pluck from a little chicken coop-esque bed of hay]
[i've lived in chicago for 3 years and had never tried the famous oberweis milk - til now!]
Chocolate covered vanilla marshmallows with a layer of creamy caramel on the bottom [as previously swooned over here] and that’s not all…
A sweet milk chocolate bonnet that tastes like heaven.
