Bloomingfoods – Near West Side

I used to live by the near-​west side neighborhood and dropped so much money at this Bloomingfoods location. My favorites included: 1) breakfast bar with vegan French toast, biscuits & gravy, and the wonderful chai, 2) fresh & diverse salad bar, with the dragon tofu and green zippy Tao dressing, 3) bulk section (spices!), and 4) the grab n’ go section, especially the BBQ seitan, HummBuzz sandwiches, and olive tapenade. There is an average-​sized dining area with tables and chairs, which fills up pretty quickly during meal times. The parking lot is a little cramped and it can be a drag to enter/​exit; if it is full, you are stuck with metered street parking… unless you can walk from nearby. I especially liked walking to Bloomingfoods after the Saturday farmer’s market, to supplement my market produce in prep for a delicious meal. Although two (2) of Bloomingfoods’ smaller outposts have closed over the last year, this location seems more vibrant and I hope has the longevity of the flagship east-​side location.

Co-​op coolio! A market with strong ties to the community and standards in products. If you’re vegan, there are multitudes of choices to wet your palette.
Along with the store products, there is a café which serves sandwiches, soups, a salad bar, and various hot food items.
We chose the market café because it was quick and easy and we had to be back at our next destination for the Unilocal Bloomington Getaway.
They have outdoor/​indoor seating with wifi access. The locals place to shop and eat.

Great place for fresh food and fresher groceries. If you have any dietary restrictions, this is the place for you! Great vegan dishes and signature sandwiches. Their hot bar is filled with great food all day/​night. If you are in the area, bfoods is the place to go! Treat yourself, both in taste and nutrition! Five out of five yums!

This is the local co-​op that anyone who’s everyone knows and loves here in the hot bright city of Bloomington :) I love the sparkling water and when there is Mac n Cheese on the hot bar don’t you dare leave without some! Bloomingfoods is Btown’s PREMIER macncheese spot. They also have great options for vegetarians, and sandwiches to die for! Blomingfoods gets a heck yea from me

I have mixed feelings about BloomingFoods in general, and this location specifically. In deference to the foodie orthodoxy, it does have quality food and produce. There are cheeses and foods that make even the «high variety» grocers look lame.
But then there are prices from Mars, as in out of my world. This is not a place of bargains. There are a lot of standard names in the health food/​gourmet market business here, and they’re often at retail, or retail+. Their buik items can be sometimes close to reasonable. Prepared foods are often of good quality– never found something past freshness or of questionable taste.
It’s the closest grocer to downtown, in a city that eschews chain stores (except when the deal is good enough for the city council). This said, as a co-​op, it perhaps works well, but as a retail establishment, I’m motivated to look elsewhere.

Love me a good food co-​op! Picture a local version of a smaller-​scale Whole Foods and you’ve got Bloomingfoods. They’ve got a little bit of everything — fresh produce, bulk items (beans, coffee), supplements, beauty items, the whole gamut.
The winning characteristic in my book is the high-​quality prepared foods sections. For a small market, it’s got a nice salad bar and hot food bar. Not to mention those items ready to go in the refrigerated case, like fresh squeezed juices. Even a sushi bar! Dine inside in the deli area or outside with the wind blowing your hair.
Expect a slightly hippie, but not pretentious, vibe. Eco-​friendly, natural, and organic are the buzzwords around here.
Loved spotting the local brands, like Hopscotch and Soapy Soap!

Grabbed some chorizo and fresh ground honey roasted peanut butter from these guys on a trip to IU. Really charming spot for high quality groceries and great service. Definitely like the atmosphere here compared to the big box Whole Foods models. Nice selection. Yes, it’s pricey but that’s what you come to expect of these places.

B-​FOODS! Fresh ORGANIC groceries & sandwiches. I come here for lunch at least 4 times a week. Extremely welcoming staff in a very earthy and friendly atmosphere. Seating inside & outside and also very fresh to go. I highly recommend the PB&J (new flavored jams daily) or a classic Turkey sandwich on French bread. Many options for everyone.
Quality-9.5/10
Atmosphere– 8.5÷10
Creativity-8.5/10
–A&R

Fantastic selection and my new grocery location of choice. Far superior to the 3^rd Street location with a great variety of produce and hot bar items. And pretty reasonable price-​wise.

Bloomingfoods was a solid market. We went for the prepared foods, which was small and somewhat limited but good quality. I think I saw another Unilocal review saying it was all organic but I didn’t see any indication that the prepared foods were organic. There is no juice bar but they have a salad and hot food bar, as well as a sandwich counter. I got a salad and a great ‘Turkish Lentil soup’ but the highlight for me about Bloomingfoods was the homemade energy bars, which were awesome. I’d go back just for those!

I have been an habitué of Bloomingfoods for 20 years for occasional special grocery items. Only joined recently as we began to eat more in the vegetarian health trends direction (still not fully converted). And I only ate here the first times this year. But I did keep coming back. Good variety and good flavor. If you are under 30 and eating lots of tofu range graze, you will find delicious and affordable meals ready to scoop up from the food bar. Oh sure, you will find that if you are older like me, but it may be more of a conversion experience for you.

Today was our first visit to the store as we just moved to the area and found it extremely overpriced and nothing special. We did decide to get a turkey sandwich from their deli and we ate it there. It was ok but loaded down with mustard. We have shopped at Whole Foods and Trader Joes for years so we don’t get sticker shock too easily. Just not the place for us to shop I guess. Sad too because this is so close to our house. less than a mile. We left and went to Lucky’s Market and found it more to what we are accustomed to.

Loved Bloomingfoods from the first time I walked in many years ago — probably the first natural food store that I had experienced.
In the 25 years or so that I’ve visited the store it’s done nothing but get better which is impressive.
Thanks for my first experience there and thanks for all the many great experiences I’ve had since.

Overpriced and my wife was not impressed. This is not the same place it was a year ago.
I doubt it will be around next year if this is how it changed.

Great set of stores but their customer service is terrible. I’ve enjoyed going to Bloomingfoods for several years but they’ve had trouble adapting to competition. Fresh sliced fruit has turned into fruit packaged out of state. Organic blueberries are $ 4 more per pint than every other store in town. The management needs to change.

Overpriced, but they and the slightly less overpriced (and variable quality) Sahara Mart are the only options here. I guess that’s what you can expect from a tiny town in the Midwest.
Still, even by those standards, back in California (where everything is supposed to be more expensive) I can find the same products for ¾ths of the price, and sometimes ½ of the price when they’re on sale. Not to mention that Bloomingfoods tends to missing most of the newer items.
Their hot bar is at times fantastic though, and the service is more or less excellent. The solicitors outside can be a tad annoying though, but I guess in Indiana an organic supermarket is the best place to get people to donate to environmental causes.
Yet, despite how much I objectively dislike Bloomingfoods, I do appreciate its existence in a tiny countryside town.

My favorite Bloomingfoods is the one downtown. I like to frequent it when it’s Saturday after my visit to the farmer’s market to get some soda. The prices are a lot, but sometimes I don’t mind if it’s local. I also love that there is seating outside!

Some interesting selections you can’t get at Kroger but that’s about it for the appeal of the place.
Pretty much everything is overpriced including their buffet and deli.

I love this cooperative. I had the fortune of being in Bloomington for a conference. The conference was catered by Bloomingfoods. The food was unique and delicious and I was very pleased with the overall presentation. How often can one say that about conference food?
Since I got snowed in, I got an extra night in Bloomington and decided to head to the cooperative to pick up some things. They have a great selection of items… LOVE THE SOAP! I highly recommend buying their granola. They served it at the breakfast one day and I swear that it is made with something that makes you crave it when you get back to your own state and cannot run to the co-​op to pick some up (note, I did not say crack — crack is whack). Check it out. Great staff, well run store and I will be back.

My heart fluttered as soon as I set foot inside this amazing, little co-​op. Bloomingfoods uses every square inch wisely and efficiently without overwhelming the customer, nor cluttering aisles. Prices were extremely reasonable, far below Whole Foods and many other health foods stores that I have frequented. As Bloomington is a college town, it is very easy to get a meal well under $ 5 dollars. In fact, many of there prepared food section was weighed so that one could get a meal around $ 3 or so. Not only was a salad bar present, but a hot bar, and olive bar was as well. Delicious smoothies were affordable. And for all you lushes out there, be sure to check out their discounted wine section.
I was also thrilled to see a large plant selection as well as a small, separate building dedicated to gardening. They carry bulk seeds, tools, and natural fertilizers such as bat guano.
I believe that other health food stores should look to Bloomingfoods as an ideal template.

It’s a cute grocery store and felt very appropriate for a stop during a visit to Bloomington. The sandwich selection is nice, the prepared foods are varied but a bit pricy, the staff is friendly. Great beer selection with some local stuff I’d never seen before. This is where you go for your tofu Reuben, dried goji berries or fresh hummus. I got a boutique soda and a ginger chicken wrap, which came with a side, so I chose arugula couscous with goat cheese, which sounds like a meal in itself; it was a bit busy, and while fresh, it wasn’t super flavorful and wasn’t my favorite, and came with a bunch of surprise ingredients. The sandwich had a bunch of chicken, t apparently the ginger was in the form of these crunchy pieces of some sort of bread product that I didn’t like very much, so I wouldn’t recommend that particular sammich. They have a solid cheese selection and lots of desserts, full-​sized and personal-​sized. Lots of whole bean coffee, lots of frozen desserts and nice sorbets. They even have cheese curds. They have a whole wall of nuts and seeds. It’s small, but they definitely have at least some version of what you need.

Lots of prepared foods and a cute covered patio outside for dining. I scored a bunch of summer dresses for just $ 9.99 each. Adorable!

Cute little version if a Whole Foods. Had a great breakfast if oatmeal with fruit, and a great French Roast coffee. Will become my new go to breakfast.

Bloomingfoods is part of what makes Bloomington Bloomington in the best way. I love Bloomingfoods’ selection of local and sustainable produce, dairy, and bulk foods. Much of the small store is taken up by processed food and prepared food items. However, the prepared food items are very good, and they do make this a neighborhood gathering place at lunchtime. Although some items are pricey, you pay for what you get. The fact that I can buy local eggs from humanely raised chickens without going to the farmers’ market is just amazing.
Unlike some co-​ops, you do not have to be member to shop here or work at the store to be a member. If you do decide to become a member, you get some additional sales and a vote for the co-​op board. The payment to become a member is also fully refundable if you are living in Bloomington for just a few years.
The seating inside and outside is often packed. but it’s a great place to people watch. The staff here can be a mixed bag. Some are perfectly nice to chat with. Others will make judgmental comments so just be prepared. There is one employee I actively avoid at the checkout because of this.

Solid 5 stars for this wonderful place!
A brilliant selection of sexy Indiana beer (3 Floyd’s, Cutter’s, New Albanian, Fountain Square, Flat 12)
A locally roasted coffee selection with standouts from Brown County. (Try the dark roasted Mocha Java from Brown County roasters. These glistening beans will wet your whistle and rev your engine) Every visit, the coffee has always been marked as freshly roasted a few days prior.
Smoking Goose meats are abundant. Nice variety.
Great cheeses with a few local studs like Capriole being represented.
Trader’s Point yogurt and milk. Oh yeah.
Locally made ice cream from BLU Boy and the Chocolate Moose.
And finally, the place that grabs me and sucks me in like a black hole: the cold sides/​desserts near the deli. Spicy chinese noodles, cashew noodles, roasted artichoke, Szechwan green beans, tuna salad and the most divine chocolate mousse to name a few. Of course, tons of vegan stuff to choose from as well. This section is filled with endless amounts of cold sides that are high quality and tasty as hell. If you can only choose two: get the mousse and the cashew noodles (which are perfectly spicy!)

If you know me, you know I love beans.
If stranded on an island, I would choose beans as my signature food item. I have yet to meet someone who has been stranded on an island with the option to choose one «signature» food item. But if my time comes, please know that the answer is «beans.»
If you’re wanting to purchase my island beans on a budget, head to Bloomingfoods in Bloomington, Indiana. Pull a plastic baggy off the wall and fill ‘er up with garbanzos, red lentils, black beans and if you’re feeling generous, I wouldn’t mind some wild rice from their wall of bulk pastas, rices and oats (I know, I know, it’s not a bean-​but let’s face it, I’m also not really stranded on an island…).
While purchasing my survival beans, you’ll come across a beautiful deli buffet with options like lemony artichoke, pesto mozzarella balls and tofu salads. Be a peach and grab yourself a bottle of their fresh squeezed juice. Whatever you choose to buy for yous and mes, know that it will be easy as pie to find vegetarian options at reasonable prices. I may not be vegetarian, but I still feel that you, the reader, should know this is a brilliant spot for we, leafy lovers.