Lazy Acres opens its doors to hungry South Bay residents

By Doug Speicher 

Staff Photographer

Unlike the name of the store, Lazy Acres employees are everything but lazy. Lazy Acres’s newest location provides community members with a store that is unlike any other.

Lazy Acres Natural Market recently opened its fifth store on Oct. 13 in Hermosa Beach. It quickly became a popular supermarket for people in the South Bay and, fortunately, will not be leaving anytime soon due to it’s multi-year lease with Hope Chapel.

Bristol Farms has owned Lazy Acres since 2005. Lazy Acres Natural Market was originally founded in 1991 with their first store opened in Santa Barbara. The newest installment in the chain of stores was modeled after the Encinitas location, which opened in Oct. 2016.

The second shoppers step into Lazy Acres, they are greeted with an open entrance full of fresh prepared foods that are ready to grab-and-go. The grand entrance includes a fresh smoothie, juice and coffee bar, as well as healthy prepared meals, house made soups and a full selection of sushi and poke. With this setup, it’s easy for shoppers to come, grab food and leave without having to walk through multiple aisles to look for what they want.

Once shoppers get past all the fresh prepared foods, they get to the aisles which have an extensive selection of vegan, gluten free and Paleo foods. Each aisle in the store backs up to a wall of foods to buy in bulk with plenty of organic options. With the plethora of food choices, shoppers have many more options than nearby competitors, such as Whole Foods and Vons.

Along the perimeter of the store is a wide selection of natural and organic meat. Continuing around the back wall is the seafood department, with everything from sushi to whole fish. With this extensive selection in the seafood department, shoppers do not have to travel all the way to a fish market, making it more convenient for customers to get local, good quality fish.

The store is also filled with decorations making shoppers feel as though they are shopping at a farmers market with a diverse variety of food choices rather than a grocery store. The decorations make the store stylish and allow Lazy Acres to stand out from other local grocery stores.

The employees are eager to help customers and contribute to the overall friendly atmosphere. This positive attitude creates a comfortable environment for shoppers, and their friendly personas create the cheerful atmosphere in the store, which stands out from most other grocery stores around town.

Throughout the store, there are arrows and lines decorated with bees, all leading the shopper towards an active beehive. The bees are kept behind glass and encapsulated in a big wooden showcase with plenty of holes for access to fresh air. The beehive conveys the importance of bees and all that they contribute to the food system, making the experience for shoppers educational and informative. In this part of the store, shoppers can buy bee related products like honeycomb, fresh honey and various beeswax items.

Lazy Acres has a great bakery, offering the house-made cookie called “The Cookie,” which is a cookie that is about four times larger than the size of an average cookie. The dessert is absolutely delicious, with a gooey, soft texture. Shoppers will want to stop and relax while enjoying this sweet treat.

The only downside to Lazy Acres are its small parking lot and the crowds of people that it attracts. Shoppers should be prepared for the crowd and avoid coming during weekends to avoid waiting in line for a long period of time.

Lazy Acres has plenty to offer and provides a completely different experience from a typical grocery store. With plenty of options, the store has everything shoppers could ever want or need out of a single supermarket. The employees are friendly and happy to help and with plenty of fresh prepared foods, it is not surprising that this store’s popularity has grown so much within the community since it opened its doors.

Lazy Acres is located at 2510 Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach. It is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information, visit www.lazyacres.com.