Whole Foods Market

"Although the store and the variety of items in the store is good - the store is a bit too crowded most of the time. The store is too small to accommodate this many people. The worst nightmare about this store is the parking. You will never get parking in the parking lot and will keep circling to find a spot even during normal times (and forget about evenings or weekends). They need to move out of this crazy location to a more manageable spot."

"Nicely laid out for both quick shopping and leisurely browsing. Nice selection of produce, meats, and dried goods. Bulk meats are sometimes a good deal, especially the chicken (good flavor in simple broths). Nice selection of cheese. Depending on the day off the week out time of day, can be busy. Self check out has a good number of kiosks, so goes pretty quickly. Nice to have the Amazon return kiosk. The parking lot is challenging on the weekends."

"Most things here are super overpriced and the Prime discount makes no sense (especially considering you can't use Amazon gift cards), but their chorizo is excellent and $6/lb."

"At this point I've almost lost count of the incidents of disrespect and racial descrimination I've experienced at this Whole Foods location. I live and work in the area, so I feel I have a right to eat here. Despite the fact that this Whole Foods location overwhelmingly serves African-American and African immigrant patrons, the employees go out of their way to racially profile, harass and create a segregated shopping expierience for Black customers. This has literally been going on for years and has gotten much worse after COVID. The racial profiling particularly of African-American customers has reached outrageous proportions. Last year management decided that white and Hispanic only guards in para-military/tactical gear was the way to go in order to discourage theft. These guards roam back and forth through the store staring at Black customers who I'm sure have shopped at this location for years. I was told by a longtime customer and former employee that one of the guards employed there began following here as soon as she entered the store. She felt it was because she made the mistake of not dressing well enough that day, and wearing a hooded jacket. Yesterday evening while at self-checkout I had a male employee come stand next to me out of the blue. He was so close it made me anxious. When I asked what the issue was, he boldly stated " You know why I'm standing here right? You have three items and have only scanned one so far." I then asked him if it was ok with him if I paid for my food with two different forms of payment? This is a hallmark of racism and racial profiling. It seeks to humiliate you at every possible turn. Even something as simple as purchasing groceries with your hard earned money is like running a gauntlet. You have no basic civil or human rights that businesses or their employees are compelled to respect. I just read a review that this Whole Foods location is now using their security gaurds and Mongomery County PD to engage in illegal searches of Black customer's bags. I demanded to speak with the manager last night. The manager I spoke to was named Crystal. Crystal's name comes up more than once in some of the reviews and complaints of racial discrimination for this Whole Foods. What I found out personally is that Crystal isn't particularly concerned about the policy of mistreatment and discrimination of Black customers. She stated that both she and Whole Foods is aware that there are "concerns and issues". She also stated that they've been addressed. Crystal also stated that she's been at this store for three years. Which says to me that Crystal has had a hand in the policies and culture of racial profiling at the Whole Foods market in downtown Silver Spring."

"Today I visited this location. I am a frequent shopper here. However, I am sick. So I just threw on some random clothing just to come get a few things to help me overcome my cold. My cashier was a woman. Looked like she could’ve been from Indian or Ethiopian decent. The man in front of me came from a similar background. She greeted him with a smile, spoke to him the whole time, and gave him as many bags as he needed. She never asked him. Once he left she began scanning my items. She greeted me with a dry “hi” and then kept scanning everything. She asked me if I needed a bag which, I wouldn’t find weird unless I had two items but I had probably over 10 items. Majority heavy. I told her yes then instead of separating my items to my fruits don’t get crushed she pile everything into one bag. It’s like she assumed like I couldn’t pay for a bag because I’m Black and because of the way I was dressed. Like I said she never asked man these questions. Like I said I’m a frequent shopper at this location. And I’ve never been questioned or treated like this by any other cashier.! Please give your team members the proper training and teach them not to judge anybody based on race/appearance. Never know what somebody is going through."