Wheatsville Food Co-op

This place is great, from how accessible it is and how friendly the staff is. It's great!! I'm new to Austin and was looking for a local market and found a great place. I've read that the prices are much higher than they used to be in the past, however the prices are still better than Target or any other places.

It is a short distance from where I live and I've never had an issue in the store. They have everything I've needed so far, they offer a $70 yearly fee to be a member and you get %10 discounts every time you shop. The best part is that you don't have to pay the full price! You can split it up between your visits there and they can work with your schedule for those payments.

I must admit though, the best thing about this place other than the selections they had was how friendly and helpful everyone has been every time I go in. I always have questions about if things are in stock and where they are and everyone is always quick to help me find it. Everyone working the registers are fantastic as well, always friendly, always with a smile making them feel very welcoming. They also assisted me with the membership program and were excellent in explaining everything in detail!

This place is great, if you're looking to support a local store that has prices the same or lower than those big stores like Walmart or Target, then you have to come here. The prices are pretty solid with H-E-B as well!

Woke food for rich people. RIDICULOUSLY overpriced food disguised as environmentalism... The price points here for a banana, or an onion are INSANE. 12$ per lb. For gross cafe food that looks like it's been sitting out for days. 5$ cans of woke soda... Despondent and rude employees... This is the dumbest grocery store ever.

Nice local grocery that has been around longer than just about any in Austin. Love the vibe here, friendly staff. The selection could be a little bit better on some things, but this store aims for local and organic. I can even find some items from California that I don't see anywhere else in town (think Majestic hummus!) quality organic, just not quite enough produce options guaranteed if you are trying to make something exotic. Bakery is really impressive in quality. I go back often for the olive and rosemary breads and rolls. Much quicker in and out than some of the other groceries in the area, plus I love supporting a local favorite. The staff is nicer and more helpful than in any Austin grocery I've been in. Many have been there for a long time. I sense they really enjoy working there. Pro tip: if you love a recipe you try there, they will send it to you. I was told this but then tried it after the family really liked one of the Thursday specials. Within a day, they sent it to me. Perfection.

Couldn't post with no stars. I want to, they suck!
Negative 100 's
Employees picking their nose. Then made my sandwich. Disgusting. Person with braids made the worst sandwich I've ever had or known to exist.

I'm not yet an owner but came here during the 'arbor-pocalypse' - the 2023 ice storm. They were luckily open the day after and there was plenty of fee parking. I found Wheatsville to be at that sweet spot slightly bigger than a Fresh Plus and smaller than a Whole Foods. They have a good selection of everything you can think of with an emphasis on organic and natural products. I was surprised at the amount of produce they had and bought some pretty juicy oranges and apples to restock my fridge. They also have a good selection of meat alternatives. They even have a section with beer and wine which were priced reasonably. In fact, I didn't feel like I broke the bank at all here and will add this to part of my weekly shopping rotation.

I became a member back in the 80s, and used to be a big fan. My 1990 punk band even had a song about the store. But over the years I've been witness to WV's slow decline.

Back in the 80s and early 90s, there were only two outlets for organic foods, WV and Whole Foods, with Whole Foods being exorbitant. WV filled a niche, and had a lot of charm.

These days, organics are available everywhere, and WV's charm is gone. They're essentially what Whole Foods used to be like before Amazon took over (high priced and nothing special), only a lot smaller . The other stores beat them on price, selection, and service.

WV used to have staff that had been there for literally *decades*. They've all been either forcibly purged or just abandoned ship. They recently lost a staffer who'd been there for *33 years* (!), who left to join HEB.

Their co-op credentials are also spurious. Once when they had an election on whether the store should boycott certain items, the choices were "Yes", "No" and "No opinion." The proper way to count the votes would be to compare "Yes" to "No". Instead, they added the "No" and "No Opinion" together (!), to get the result they wanted. I protested about this at a board meeting, but the board members all thought that adding No and No Opinion together was proper.

Once I asked if WV could supply funnels in the bulk spice section, to make it easier to get spices into my bottles without spilling/wasting since their spoons were larger than typical spice bottles. Their response was that if I wanted funnels, I could go buy them myself.

I used to make product requests on their form, always checking the box saying "I would like a staffer to contact me." No one ever did, except the one time the manager of that department happened to be a friend of mine.

I wrote a letter to the general manager, detailing various problems such as these. He dismissed each and every one.

I'd done volunteer work there years ago and they gave me a punchcard for a 10% discount for each of ten visits. I lost it, and then when I found it and tried to use it, they refused, even though there was no expiration date on the card.

The website is an absolute joke. Go to HEB, there's a search box right at the top to see what they have and what it costs. At Wheatsville.coop, good luck finding anything similar. No search box. Click the "Shop" menu but none of the options seem to be a product search. In the middle of the page, there's what looks to be an "Order Online" button, but it's not actually a button, nothing happens when you click it. In tiny type a few inches under the fake button there's a link that says "Start My Order". I don't really want to order, I just want to check products and prices, but I click anyway, and it spawns a stupid gratuitous new window. And on THAT page, they demand that I create an account before they deign to let me search their products. It bears repeating: At HEB, there's a search box right on top of the home page. At Wheatsville even after jumping through various hoops you still can't search.

I ended my membership at WV years ago, but we still went until recently to get White Mountain Food's wheat roast since Natural Grocers stopped carrying it. We'd special-order one or two cases. The last time we ordered, no one from the store ever contacted us. We haven't been back since.

I cannot recommend this location at this time for curbside orders.

While the online side of the ordering process went smoothly, as did the subsequent text acknowledgments, picking up my order did not. It involved a trip inside since my arrival text went unacknowledged after 10 minutes. Experientially, a more typical response time is well under 5 minutes. Bearing in mind there is an upcharge for this service, it should not be my responsibility to go inside and deliver a wake-up call to the delivery staff.

The cashier who left her register to bring out my order apologized profusely for the inattentiveness of their curbside staff. Reading between the lines of what was said, it became obvious I can't trust this store's curbside staff and process to execute as smoothly and reliably as it does at the South Lamar location.

Sadly, while I'd love to see the latest remodel in-person someday, I'll only be back to this location in desperation.

Love this so many choices and being members owner is easy to get discount card. Parking is easy free and helpful staff and no app ,many choices for body and food drinks and household stuff and animals care and to go food and drink's choices.

It's great to have a store like this near the North Campus neighborhood. The small size makes it easier to find things than in a large store. I recently went in looking for a vegetarian substitute for chicken bouillon cubes, and the staff was very helpful.

Wheatsville is offering curbside pickup which is ideal during the pandemic. No need to forego the high quality products and locally sourced you've come to love. It is a smooth process and it's so nice to get to say hello to some of the best staff ever!