We`ve all felt it: the fury and frustration when the shopper ahead of you in the express line has stuffed her grocery cart with substantially more than the 10-item limit.
But at Whole Foods Markets, a Texas-based chain of natural food stores, shoppers are able to ease the angst with a service that`s winning smiles from aisle to aisle: in-store massage.
Provisions are different at each of the chain`s 10 stores, but during most store hours, registered massage therapists are at the ready with 5-to-10- minute relief sessions. Working from special massage chairs, the therapists minister to harried shoppers with head, neck and shoulder treatments. Occasionally foot massage is offered.
”It`s a nice little fringe benefit,” says Bunky Graves of the Whole Foods Market in Berkeley, Calif.
Prices range from about $5 to $15 for massages in the chain`s outlets in California and Texas. And its popularity is luring more than those prowling the produce aisle.
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”We have a lot of businesspeople who come in over their lunch break,”
says Graves, ”just for a massage.”