Whole Foods is opening along H Street NE next month

(Julie Jacobson/AP)

The Whole Foods store along the busy H Street NE corridor will open March 15, the Austin-based chain announced Tuesday.

The 40,000-square-foot store in the 600 block of H Street NE replaces Murry’s, the neighborhood’s longtime — and cheaper — grocery store. Murry’s closed in 2014 to make way for a new mixed development with high-end apartments, anchored by Whole Foods. McLean-based Insight Property Group, which plopped down $10 million for the Murry’s store in 2011, is developing the property.

This is the latest development opening in the booming corridor, which has seen a number of high-end developments open in recent years. The D.C. Streetcar opened along the corridor in 2016, which the city funded, in part, as an incentive for more retail and residences in the neighborhood.

The grocery store will feature a venue with a “Chinese diner-style” menu from prominent chef Erik Bruner-Yang. Until recently, Bruner-Yang was the owner and executive chef at Toki Underground, D.C.’s acclaimed ramen restaurant in the H Street Corridor. He owns Maketto on the same strip.

Ivy City brewery Atlas Brew Works will have a bread market in the store, and there will be other local offerings throughout, according to a news release from Whole Foods.

Whole Foods said it will have the only outdoor patio on H Street NE looking onto the busy corridor. The store will have 150 employees.

It will have a “traditional bread-baking ceremony” at 8:45 a.m. on March 15 to mark the opening. This will be the high-end grocery store’s fifth location in the District.

Whole Foods has announced plans to open two additional stores in the District, one in Shaw in Northwest and another near Nationals Park in Southeast. This expansion comes amid news of Whole Foods’ falling sales and announcement that it would be closing nine stores throughout the country. A spokesperson for the grocery store would not confirm that the two upcoming stores in the District are still scheduled to open.

The D.C. Department of Health shut down the Glover Park Whole Foods for health code violations. It reopened the following day.

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