Whole Foods opened its San Francisco superstore last March, bringing 65,000 square feet of groceries to the city’s Mid-Market district. Today the store is closed.
The Trinity Place store at the corner of 8th and Market streets was touted as a flagship location when it opened and was one of the largest grocery stores in downtown San Francisco. The San Francisco Standardan independent news agency reported for the first time the closure.
Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazonconfirmed the closure, but refrained from saying whether the shutdown was permanent or not.
“To ensure the safety of our team members, we have made the difficult decision to close the Trinity store at this time,” a Whole Foods Market spokesperson said. Fortune. “All team members will be relocating to one of our nearby locations.”
The store’s website was taken down with the store’s closure.
Matt Dorsey, City Board Member, said on Twitter he was “incredibly disappointed but sadly not surprised” with the action.
Retail theft has been a growing problem in San Francisco, with a 23% increase in property crime between 2020 and 2022, according to the San Francisco Police Department. (The number of violent crimes increased by 8%).
Shoplifting and other thefts have been a problem for many retailers across the country in recent months. In December, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart warned that retail theft could lead to price hikes and even store closures, telling CNBC the theft is “higher than it has been historically.” And Bob Nardelli, former Home deposit The CEO and former chairman and CEO of Chrysler, said the problem was “spreading faster than COVID” as last Christmas approached.
However, San Francisco’s crime problems have been particularly highlighted, as tech leaders and venture capitalists have criticized the state of the city. This outcry was amplified this week following the stabbing death of 43-year-old Cash App founder Bob Lee.