Her builders completely renovated the interior of the market to modernize displays, giving it a sleek Mediterranean market look with light brick work and dark wood paneling, along with stainless steel cases and wire shelving. A cafe area provides seating for those who want to eat there.
High-end takeout foods, along with comfort dishes, are a specialty, as well as gourmet offerings of fresh seafoods, produce, meats, pastries, and beer and wines.
Signature crabcakes from the Virginia store, a favorite of Johnson's, are on the menu. Johnson's spouse, William Newman Jr., an Arlington, Va., judge and gourmet cook, will create a special Palm Beach sandwich for the store.
Local chef and cookbook author Steve Petusevsky, a former corporate chef for Whole Foods Markets, is the general manager. He's just returned from a year's trip around the Mediterranean, and says it's changed his food "head-set."
"I'm into the whole Mediterranean food pyramid now. Fresh foods, with lots of flavors, with simple preparations. If you have the greatest, freshest food available, you don't have to overcomplicate the cooking to get the flavor from it. Less is more."
His mission statement also has changed from Whole Foods' regional or local sourcing to a more global approach. "We'll carry a little of everything. Organics, sure, but we have conventional foods, too." Pastas from Italy, olives and oils from numerous countries and locally produced goat cheese are available. So is Knorr's powdered sauce and gravy mixes, the same kind found at most supermarkets.
For the numerous private chefs on the island the market will offer foods in bulk for their families, as well as chef "convenience" products like prepared demi-glace, made in house.
Catering services are available, and home meal delivery is planned for later this year.
The kitchen will be open for shoppers to watch the chefs and cooks prepare dishes to order or for the cases; three TVs mounted high on the walls will show hands-on demos filmed in-house.
Sometime in April, Petusevsky said, they'll offer cooking classes and demos, and the store's sommelier, Jake Card, will offer wine appreciation and food-pairing classes.