Naturally Yours

Naturally Yours finally opened in B-N after months of being an empty building with a coming soon sign in the window. We were really excited to go because we've been trying to eat more organic and less processed food. Here are my initial thoughts:

• It's smaller than I expected. Initially, I thought they were going to have the entire buidling that was an old grocery store, but right before they opened it became clear that the space had been subdivided and was going to be much smaller. On top of that, within the small space, there's not a ton there. There are wide aisles and lots of open space at the back, but it's definitiely not a full size grocery store.
• Who ever organized the store needs to be fired. I understand that they just opened and they may not have had a chance to put up aisle numbers or section markers, but it's nearly impossible to find anything. There is an aisle that places dog food next to salad dressing. It appears that it is partially organized by type of item (produce, grains, etc) and partially organized by dietary needs (vegan, gluten free, etc). Since there are no signs and some items appear in multiple places, you literally have to comb the entire store to determine your options.
• Once you have located what you need, however, I think that the store will be really useful for people looking for non-mainstream ingredients. They have tons of bulk bins with granola, beans, dried fruits, grains, herbs, and other items. We bought quinoa for about $3.00 a pound instead of the $7-10/lb commercially packaged version that we have to drive across town to get (if we'd ever bought it that is). We also bought some pumpkin spice granola out of the bin that was wonderful (and cheap).
• It terms of allergy friendly stores, they are amazing. Organic products in general tend to be better about clearly labeling major allergens, but if you are allergic to gluten, dairy, eggs, etc and want to find non-allergy containing versions of popular foods (such as pizza crust, salad dressing, etc) this is a great store. Of course, carrots don't qualify as a major allergen, so other than clear ingredient lists, this doesn't help me out too much.
• The prices are high. With the exception of the bulk bins I mentioned above, I was very disappointed in the prices. Schnucks has a lot of organic prodcuts as well and while Naturally Yours may be a little more local many mainstream organic brands (Seventh Generation, etc) were considerablly higher. Organic chicken at Schnucks runs about $7.99/lb, the same product here was $10 or $12. Organic apples at Schnucks $2.99/lb, at Naturally Yours $4.99. If they were differences of a few cents, then I might be able to justify it, but for commonly available items, this is not the place to shop. I will say that they had organic versions of produce that Schnucks doesn't carry, so if I ever want organic nectarines, I know where to shop.

Overall, I hate to say that I'm really not impressed. I was really looking forward to Naturally Yours opening and had envisioned it to be something like Whole Foods. It's not. I will probably use it for bulk bin items, but that's about it. I'm looking forward to making a lovely trail mix, but in terms of actual shopping, I don't think it's going to be part of my regular routine.