Greenlife Grocery Asheville

Green Life, as a grocery store, is meh. Especially with the addition of an actual Whole Foods to town. Also, they are now surrounded by Harris Teeter, two places with better options and better prices with more room to actually shop.
That being said, their smoothie bar is
outta this world. I go weekly (sometimes bi-​weekly if I’m feeling right) to get the Green Gorilla. It is a treat and I can’t even say I’ve branched out from that one. Having tried smoothies from pretty much anywhere available in town, these are the only ones worth buying and not just making yourself. (Now that I think about it, Elements is a great other option, sorry guys).
As far as local foods and produce, you’re better off hitting farmer’s markets, Ingles or Harris Teeter.

I love this place. It is pretty convenient for me that I live right down the road. I looooove their hot bar buffet and their smoothies. Good selection of non GMO and organic products if that’s your thing. The only downside is their prices but I guess that’s almost all organic things. They also have unique food items too that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. The staff there are also super nice.

As much as I hate grocery shopping, Greenlife is always a fairly pleasant experience.
They have a great produce selection and I love all of their made and ready snacks. Their spring rolls, although pricey, are one of my favorite things to pick up for a quick lunch with a kombucha or a fresh made juice. Their hot bar is small but great for breakfast and this place is the only one in Asheville with a smoothie that is worth spending money on! Their staff is always friendly and helpful and it seems like they treat their employees very well which I find important.
Why four stars instead of five? Well, it is super small and depending on the time of day, it is impossible to get through the place without knocking something over or running over someones toes with your grocery cart! Close quarters is the downfall of this grocery store. Also, they have a pretty good selection but they ain’t got everything. It’s one of those places where you don’t go on a «big shop» but rather to buy specific things.
The fact that it is so close to downtown is great for the locals living off of Merrimon or in downtown proper so, it has that larger «bodega» vibe. It’s great to grab your morning coffee or a smoothie for breakfast and awesome for a quick lunch but if you’re looking to find all of your grocery store needs, this might not be the place for you.

Something has changed after the whole foods buyout. I know you’ve tried very hard to make it not feel that way, but it does. I don’t know why, it just is different. Not gonna hate and back off far on the stars, I still like the place, it just isn’t the same.

I got «fizzy» potatoe salad from the deli. It gave me terrible diarrhea. It was a freebie apparently for our large group order for sandwiches (which were delicious). I was the only one who had it. Obviously after i took the first bite– it was fizzy like soda. Stupidly, i took several more bites before it hit me that the fizz was bacteria fermenting. We should’ve been suspicious that we got free container of food.

We are from Charlotte and travel frequently to Asheville. Although Greenlife is smaller than our Whole Foods locally, we love all of the snack mixes at Greenlife!
We never forget to grab locally roasted coffee from Mountain Air and others, before heading back to Charlotte!

Really expensive for what it is. A lot of brands are unethical or are plastered with buzz word health terms. You pay a lot and the quality is often questionable. If you want actually LOCAL food, and not just within a 5 state radius. Go to the summer farmers markets or Earth Fare… I just rather put my food money in the local economy, not the corporate one. However! I do think the staff is great. :)

I’m a bit of a foodie, so I’m always on the hunt for the «perfect» grocery store. I’ve decided there is no such thing. So, I’ve tried to narrow down the amount of grocery stores I have to attend. Trader Joe’s is my jam, but their produce is awful :-(Every time I buy fruits or veggies there they go bad within a DAY or two. But, I digress, this is a Greenlife review. I usually swing by Whole Foods when I hit up Target, I hate driving to the eastside (it feels so far away), and consolidation is key when you have a baby in tow. I was complaining about all of this to my friend who works at Greenlife (which is owned by WFs, its essentially the same thing). He urged me to check out GL, singing their praises. I had never been, for whatever reason, so on my next TJs trip, I turned RIGHT into GL next door (please do not try turning left from merimon EVER). I was very pleasantly surprised. Its small and easy to navigate, WFs is way too big, star. Organic produce plentiful, reasonably priced and fresh, star. I found the staff to be much friendlier than WFs, star. SOLID beer selection, including some of my favorite Michigan beers, star. Definitely adding GL to the grocery list and saying goodbye to WFs!

I expected great things from this place but was sadly very disappointed with my experience here. First, I ordered some lunch here and it was not good at all. I can’t remember exactly what I ordered but I do however remember being so hungry that I had to force my way through the meal. They have a pretty good selection of organic groceries. However, with so many other great organic grocery stores in the area it is hard for me to come to this one. Personally, I prefer the Food Co-​Op, Earthfare, Trader Joes and Whole Foods.

Cannot eat at the deli if celiac, as I am. Dumb… they can’t find a way to service us at a place that is supposed to understand eating sensitivities. So, nothing for me for lunch. Ok, I’ll get GF bread and make my own sandwich. Nope… all GF bread was FROZEN.
…get with it people!

Stopped in here to buy some groceries while out of town and was so impressed that this was a local owned grocery store. They had an excellent selection throughout the store. They had prepared food that looked amazing, would love to go back and try it sometime. They reminded me a lot of a Whole Foods.

This store is honestly a HUGE reason I love living here! Such an amazing staff. This morning, I got a mislabeled breakfast sandwich and the fresh foods manager, Tracy, brought me a freshly made sandwich right to where I was sitting. Love the Greenlife Grocery! A+

We were visiting Asheville and stopped by for quick breakfast.
Loved the hot food breakfast bar — all the taste without waiting in line to get into a restaurant. The maple brown sugar steel cut oatmeal was perfect, the mushroom quiche yummy and the french toast pudding/​casserole was good even though it was on the dry side. The potatoes were okay and the tofu scramble average.
Would definitely recommend the Fill Anything bowl for $ 12 if you don’t mind your savory food touching the sweet food — my kids would. My kids chose the divided plate and had scrambled egg and oatmeal for $ 6 each — again restaurant taste and prices without the wait.

Used to be a great store, now it stinks. Employees are hateful, will run you over. That’s if you make it in the store and don’t get run over in parking lot. Out of «normal» items all the time. So tired of cashiers not ringing things up properly, pay a different price depending on your cashier. Completely over it. Earth fare is way better these days.
*wanted to give an update:
It has actually gotten worse, I didn’t think that was possible, but it is. The meat department is constantly and consistently out of grass fed meat and anything else you would normally expect at whole foods.
*A note about myself, I hardly ever give reviews, but this deserved a review. I am on a very strict diet due to an allergy and depend on grass fed meat. It is almost to the point that I will just drive out to the farm. Later Green life/​whole foods

GreenLife Grocery is a fine spot for prepared food, groceries, Green-​Juice + Raw & Living-​Foods and VEGAN in AVL. Staff is Helpful-​Kind-​Smart… Service sets a standard for treating customers with care and respect.
Yup, it is too expensive overall but certain items are priced with customer 1^st in mind (! add more!). In the old days this market was super organic but now its a different world + a new owner too, HolyFoods BatMan. Keep up the good work folks!
—#1. wish, All prepared food have a complete label of ingredients at all times (not my job to police, you folks) ! Guys, get in the game… this is the only on-​going failure i see at GL! —I’d so love to drop this #1.Grievance…

Pretty cool little store. It’s like a mini version of a Whole Foods. They still have a lot of great quality stuff, just not as much to choose from, which is good. I don’t need to try and decide between 15 variants of bacon, every time I go. Applewood smoked or Black Forrest dry rubbed? I’ll take both!

As always, shopping at a Whole Foods is a treat for me, since we don’t have on in my area. As usual, I was dazzled with the range of intriguing selections, the great presentation – and, less pleasantly, the prices. This isn’t the biggest Whole Foods in the world by far, but it’s really a nice store. Easy to navigate, clean, and with an incredibly friendly staff to answer questions every step of the way.
As a vegetarian, I always love to check out the protein options – and there were, as expected, countless refrigerated and frozen products I’d never seen before in my area. Selected a few of the most promising ones to try. Also treated myself to a custom-​made juice, available at the coffee shop, and was pleased to see they had cold-​pressed coffee available by the bottle – yum!
Outdoors, the covered patio area, surrounded by tall trees, looked like a perfect place to sit with a beverage or lunch and read one of the many free local papers provided at an adjacent stand.

It’s a decent enough grocery if you are just exploding money out of your wallet.

So, I like Whole Foods and shopped at there stores in many of the cities I’ve lived in over the last few years. As this is only a few blocks from where I live, I like it for convenience as well as selection… but not so much for pricing which is high… for everything.
Veggies and fruits are great, but I have checked prices and quanity at the WNC farmers market, so for some items I shop there and not here. In the end, shopping is about balance as there is no consistency in our capital society today.
Food, pre-​made food, beer, wine, and meats are all top notch as is the staff that helps answer questions.
The parking lot is busy, but has never been impossible for me, though I walk most of the time.
Am I 100% dedicated to this store… no. I use a blending of farmers markets, Ingles, and this store as my core food & food stuff, but all and all this is a great grocery store.

Wow! What a selection! Fair trade bulk organic. Amazing beer and wine selection based on total quality and given the small size. They have anything you could possibly need.
I’d love to shop here regularly.