Whole Foods Market in downtown SF closes a year after it opened

One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco – Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets – intends to close at close of business Monday just over a year after the store opened store, company officials told The Standard.

“We are only closing our Trinity store at this time,” a Whole Foods spokesperson said in a statement. “If we feel we can keep our team members safe in the store, we will assess a reopening of our Trinity location.”

A City Hall source told The Standard that the company cited deteriorating street conditions around the grocery store as the reason for its closure.

Since the start of the pandemic, Downtown has suffered a massive loss of foot traffic due to remote working and many small businesses have closed. Fears of a “catastrophic loop” in which a cascade of worsening negative financial impacts have spread across the city. City hall officials are currently expecting a deficit of nearly $800 million in the San Francisco budget.

An idea launched recently to deal with the crisis is convert vacant downtown office space into thousands of student accommodations.

The Besieged Market Street Grocery reduced opening hours due to “high theft” and unfriendly visitors last October, according to one of the store managers. And in November, the store imposed new bathroom rules after syringes and tubing were found in the toilet.

The market occupies 64,737 square feet, and the company called the mid-market district location its “flagship store” in A press release announcing the opening of the supermarket in March 2022.

Hours before the store closed on Monday, much of the market’s aisles were still full of food and other goods for sale. Workers continued to line the shelves with Whole Foods reserve products, including organic cereals and probiotic drinks.

Several staff members, including the store manager, declined to comment.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose district includes the Whole Foods Market, said he was “incredibly disappointed” with the store’s closure in a Twitter thread posted Monday afternoon.

Dorsey has announced that he will present new legislation with Supervisor Catherine Stefani to amend the city charter and fully staff the police department within five years.

Earlier this month, The Standard reported that the department had lost 335 officers since 2017 and its the staffing level of 1,537 officers is well below its target to have 2,100 members in the force.

This story will be updated.