95 E Houston St

Confusingly, “whole foods” refers to both a category of foods (generally unprocessed, unrefined, and using no added ingredients) and a chain that sells natural foods. Perhaps the chain is hoping to do to food what Xerox once did to making copies.

After going up to floor 2 and passing their version of a cafeteria, complete with a sushi conveyor belt, we were greeted with something of a lobby preceding the restrooms. There were stone bleachers like the ones found in some city parks, and a mural on the walls that could alternately be described as “graffiti-chic” and “neo-classical ghetto.” Apparently Whole Foods is “cool.” Once we had established that, we entered the bathrooms, an unexpected orange due to the (free range?) orange wall tiles. Graffiti adorned the paper towel dispenser, but after a close scrutiny of the marker strokes we determined it was not done by the same artist who had created the aforementioned mural outside the bathrooms. One soap dispenser was empty and another low; they were dangerously teetering on the brink of major mandatory point deductions, just like when an Olympic gymnast wears a ski mask and cape during a floor routine. We observed all this in spite of a clipboard hanging on the wall with an employee checklist for bathroom maintenance on it.

Appropriately, Whole Foods uses “paper without trees,” made of recycled fiber, tea leaves, helmets, scarves and action figures, in their “paper” towel dispenser. Now if they would only invent toilets without splash. The urinals in the men’s room are extremely low to the ground, perhaps reflecting the main demographic of this Lower East side neighborhood, thumbing its nose at all the hipsters who are just not growing up, still suckling at the trust fund teet. Perhaps they could have really gone for the gauntlet and had wooden toilet stalls, compost toilets, and a few leaves to rub your hands on as “soap,” but they gave a decent showing nonetheless.

Rating: 6.0

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