A micro-chain of luxury grocery stores in Los Angeles, popular with celebrities from Hailey Bieber to the Kardashians. Known for extravagantly priced products including chicken-noodle soup ($16.50), strawberry smoothies ($21) and sea-moss gel ($44).
Erewhon was founded in the 1960s in Boston by a Japanese couple who were devotees of the "macrobiotic" movement, which encourages followers to eat the simplest foods. Its name, an anagram of "nowhere", comes from a utopian novel by Samuel Butler. In its early days it was described as a "food museum" run by hippy volunteers, stocking whole grains and miso with labels explaining "what it was, who grew it and who blessed it on the full moon". The Boston shop eventually closed, leaving a single Los Angeles outpost.
In 2011 Tony and Josephine Antoci, a Californian couple, bought Erewhon and set about remaking it as a luxury grocer, hiking prices and cultivating a sense of exclusivity.
Erewhon operates ten stores, all in Los Angeles. Its membership programme costs $200 a year and offers discounts and free smoothies; it functions as a status symbol akin to joining a private members' club. Popular products are available only for limited periods. The average store is about 12,000 square feet—roughly one-third the size of a full-size Whole Foods. Revenue from its drinks counter and salad bar is far higher as a share of total revenue than for conventional grocers; the company describes itself as part grocer, part café.
Erewhon plans to add another six stores but remain confined to Los Angeles. Shoppers elsewhere in America can pay to have goods delivered. The company believes there are only four or five cities in America where a branch could work.
And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.