The principal Whole Foods store opened its entryways in Austin in September 1980, after John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, proprietors of the SaferWay wellbeing food store, combined efforts with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, proprietors of Clarksville Natural Grocery. Fairly bigger than an average wellbeing food store, it offered a more extensive determination of food. A glimmer flood tore through the uninsured structure a couple of months after the opening, however with assistance from an all around faithful center gathering of clients the harm was immediately fixed.
Mackey expected authority of Whole Foods as the organization extended. During the 1980s new stores were opened in Austin, Houston, and Dallas. The primary extension out of Texas accompanied the acquisition of the Whole Food Company of New Orleans in 1988. Inside the following ten years Whole Foods turned into a public organization, to a great extent by buying existing nearby or provincial regular orders of things, including Wellspring Grocery (North Carolina, 1991), Bread and Circus (Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 1992), Mrs. Gooch's (southern California, 1993), Fresh Fields (northeastern and mid-Atlantic states and Illinois, 1996), Bread of Life (Florida, 1997), Merchant of Vino (Michigan, 1997), and Harry's Farmers Market (Georgia, 2001). The organization originally offered portions of its stock to general society in 1992.