Looking to Speed Up Checkout, Whole Foods Market Blithedale Debuts New Batch of Express Lane Registers

Since its debut in 2010, Whole Foods Market’s store in the Alto Plaza center on East Blithedale Ave. has been one of the busiest grocery stores in southern Marin. That busyness has also been a source of tension for customers looking to grab a quick bite to eat during the lunch and dinner rush, and Whole Foods Market Blithedale Team Leader Colin Davidson has had a message for those folks in recent months: Help is on the way.

Relief arrived this week, as the store unveiled three new express checkout registers for a total of six, as well as one additional full service register for a total of 10.

“We hope this will alleviate the long lines during our lunch and dinner rushes,” Davidson says.

Whole Foods Market Blithedale opened in June 2010 in the space formerly occupied by Albertson’s, making Mill Valley the smallest town in the U.S. to have two Whole Foods, as the store at 414 Miller Ave. was its second store in the region and 11th store in the nation at the time. With 24,000 square feet of floor space, Whole Foods Blithedale is nearly twice the size of the company’s Miller Avenue store, a 13,000-square-foot space less than three-quarters of a mile away.

The 411: Whole Foods Market Blithedale is at 731 East Blithedale Avenue. MORE INFO.

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