I never heard back from anyone at Happier Grocery on Canal, but I did stop by and examine the goods. It’s pricey! And the shelves are just being stocked — so it’s too early to fully judge. The store is on two levels, with prepared foods, coffee, tea, smoothies (and a thing they call “house decoctions” which I think is meant to be a riff on detox) as well as some good looking thin-crust pizzas, on the first floor; dry goods and freezers in the basement. Of course it’s beautiful with the high ceilings and original columns, and my guess is they will have to make it more bodega-style to make a go of it, but time will tell.

I tried to shop my grocery list and couldn’t quite pull it off. For example, the meat section so far is sparse; the freezer section is still being stocked. Could you run in there for all the ingredients for a recipe? Maybe not at this point, but you could find enough for a spontaneous meal. Could you take your time and peruse those shelves and find some specialty items from across the city and the globe? For sure.

Eggs were north of $6; a pound of butter was almost $8 (though they have Kate’s); milk was $10. Apples ranged from $1 to $3 by the pound; a box of arugula was $5.35. There was a $23 mushroom!

But there were also some things in there that I was very excited to see, and that I would make a special trip for, since I order them anyway: Blueland surface cleaner tablets, Ursa Major skin products from Vermont, Rao’s red sauce, Tribecan Blake Lively’s Betty Buzz tonic and grapefruit mixers, Guittard baking chocolate chips.

There’s a skin care section downstairs that looks like it has some great gift items.

The company is an offshoot of another company called Happier People Management, which is also opening a food business of some kind at 161 Water, which has reinvented itself as a fashion and arts commercial building. I can’t learn much about it from the Google: nothing at all on their website, no news stories and a brief piece on PR Newswire explaining that Happier People is a new platform created this summer that uses tools designed to boost employee engagement and workplace morale.

See Tom Miller’s post on the history of the building here.

Happier Grocery
365 Canal | West Broadway & Wooster
Sunday to Thursday, 7a to 8p
Friday and Saturday, 8a to 8p