Despite Amazon Fresh’s departure, Friendship Heights offers dense supermarket choices from Whole Foods to Trader Joe’s.
Amazon recently shut down its Amazon Fresh supermarket chain, including one its stores in Friendship Heights, a neighborhood straddling the Maryland and D.C. line near Chevy Case.
But the closure did not leave residents starved for grocery options.
While some other neighborhoods in the region are relative food deserts, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s are only two blocks from the former Amazon Fresh. Shoppers willing and able to travel up to 1.5 miles into Bethesda or south into Northwest D.C. can find at least a dozen more full-service supermarkets or smaller grocery stores close by.
Supermarket clusters can occur in areas with high population density and high grocery spending, and are also a response to our shopping habits.
“People today don’t just shop in one store,” said Phil Lempert, a food industry analyst and editor of SupermarketGuru.com. “They look for what’s the best store for meat, what’s the best store for the price of toilet paper.”
Consumers typically shop at two or three stores, Lempert said, so a cluster of three to five supermarkets within a certain mile radius can create a food shopping destination, attracting customers with the convenience and variety.
It means that for Trader Joe’s, a recent arrival in Friendship Heights, the previous presence of Amazon Fresh and a Whole Foods was part of the appeal.
Clusters are one way that supermarket chains seek an advantage in a low-margin industry. Their net profit is typically only 1% to 1.5%.
Lempert said he predicts a “sea change” in the industry over the next two years, with more stores closing and chains merging in response to price pressures, including tariffs under President Donald Trump’s administration, additional inflation from farm labor shortages and rising labor costs.
Supermarkets are pressuring their suppliers into lower prices, which in turn can change the product mix and sizes in stores.
“The retailers are pushing back. They can’t afford to absorb tariffs, and manufacturers are getting to the point where they’re saying, ‘Well, maybe we can absorb it, but we’re going to have to put less in the product,’” Lempert said. “That old shrinkflation term comes back to haunt us.”
Food retailers are also experimenting with new formats and services.
Amazon’s smaller Whole Foods Market Daily Shop focuses on prepared foods and frequently purchased ingredients. Its fourth location opened in October 2025, near Amazon’s Crystal City headquarters.
Daily Shop’s selection is similar to the offerings at Amazon Go convenience stores, which Amazon is also shutting down.
Lempert said Amazon Go was not a food retail success, but its checkout-free shopping technology is generating revenue for its parent company.
Around 160 organizations are licensing the “Just Walk Out” technology. Local examples include beverage coolers at Northwest Stadium and kiosks at Dulles International and Reagan National airports.
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