Whole Foods Market, Tampa (formerly Wild Oats)

September 17, 2008
Visited here in Sept ’08. For a Whole Foods - only average in selection - still light years ahead of any normal grocery store though. Some surprises here - Fish Brewing Poseidon for instance amongst the normal macro-craft/Import offering that most Whole Foods has. Typical Belgians - Chimay, Maredsous, Rochefort, etc. Some local flavor with variety packs of Florida Beer Company’s Ybor line and some St. Somewhere but no Dunedin to be found. I was able to pick up about four that I had not rated - which is about what I expect these days in a Florida store.

July 22, 2008
Visited on a recent weekday. Pleasantly surprised by the selection especially for a grocery store. Two large open-air coolers have what looks to be many more than 40 bottles of beer. I would have placed the selection closer to 100+. We found the typical craft brew suspects including Rogue, Avery, DFH, Bells and others. We were pleasantly surprised by finding Rochefort 6 and 10 on the shelf in addition to all three Chimay, Triple Karmeliet (including some gift sets), Orval, and some other interesting beers. They have craft beer placed at several locations in the store including on large round kiosks near the beer cooler and right next to the checkout lanes. Talked briefly to the employee in charge of the beer section and he indicated they were constantly receiving new beers, even some of the more difficult to find in the area. This place is definitely worth a quick stop when you are in the area.

May 21, 2008
Good beer selection for a grocery store, if a bit pricey, but its value as a beer destination is diminished being right next to Total Wine. The food, however, is fantastic, from the bakery to take-out to general groceries. All awesome stuff. Stop by for some grub after hitting TW.

October 28, 2007
Smaller sized Whole Foods or Fresh Market. All organic food from what I could tell. Pretty decent beer selection for a grocery store, prices are a bit high. With Total Wine in the same parking lot, they seem even higher. I didn’t pick up any beer, but I did get some awesome all natural sodas and a bag of delicious chocolate cookies, so there’s that. Probably would never shop here or buy beer here, but it was worth a look once.

August 13, 2006 [ Updated August 14, 2006 ]
This place is almost on Par with a half way decent Whole Foods. There are a couple Whole Foods that blow the doors off of anything in Tampa regarding food and beer. Anyway, I really like this place. We make the thirty minute trip out here about once a month for the terrific selection of food, meat and OH the CHEESE. MMM. Their beer selection is better than most any grocery store in Tampa which isn’t saying much at all. It looks to me like organic beer equals expensive. I did grab one. Hope the flavor stacks up to the price (it didn’t).

July 10, 2006
An amazing supermarket… for hippies! Damn, Hippies… they are everywhere you go… well... pretty much except this Wild Oats! I like and am somewhat a hippy by the way! - This is the tidiest store I have ever been in. Their Seafood and meat selection is the best I have seen and their cheese selection is incredible… but it is all rather costly in comparison! The Beer selection is better than almost any other Grocer in town, which is terrific; but come on… the Wal-Mart of Booze is directly across the parking lot????

June 5, 2006
Basically just Whole Foods or Fresh market under a different name. Decent, but small selection. They make great food and have quality produce, meats and cheeses. With Total Wine and More in the same lot there is really no reason to buy anything here unless you just want some brews to take home with your groceries and don’t want to make a special stop.

June 5, 2006
This is really a grocery store but they do have some good stuff as well as the common stuff for sale. It’s right next to Total Wine with tons of beers.