New supermarket — with 'grill-while-you-shop' option — to open in former Augusta Whole Foods

By next summer, a young entrepreneur hopes to open a supermarket in Augusta with features that he said could redefine how customers shop for groceries.

Jackson Mitchell has been fleshing out his plan for FreshTake since he was 16.

“I started at a very young age, and knew I wanted to do retail and wanted to do something unique and on my own,” he told The Augusta Chronicle on Tuesday. “It’s been a long time coming.”

FreshTake will occupy the former site of Whole Foods at 2907 Washington Rd., near Interstate 20’s Exit 199. Whole Foods closed in 2017.

Mitchell began scouting potential locations for the first FreshTake in April. When he discovered the former Whole Foods, he looked closer at Augusta.

"It’s really a great market in terms of population density and also opportunities – an opportunity to bring something brand new that residents haven’t seen before, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with FreshTake,” he said.

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Mitchell, 28, is part of the fourth generation of a family that has operated an Alabama-based wholesale grocery distributorship since 1945. In 2019 he acquired the five-store chain of Little Giant Farmer’s Markets in metro Atlanta.

He soon began introducing changes to those stores that also are planned for FreshTake, such as offering more freshly prepared “grab-and-go" foods.

FreshTake’s concept is built around creating a diverse, more enjoyable shopping experience, whether customers are dashing in for a gallon of milk or lingering longer to relax or to even eat an entire meal in the store.

FreshTake will be, at its heart, a traditional supermarket, Mitchell said. The difference is the many ways you can spend your time inside. Planned features of the new store include a mezzanine with seating for 130 customers; an outdoor patio with a walk-up barbecue smokehouse; and a five-hole putting green.

Inside the 42,000-square-foot store, “Jackson’s” will be a beer-and-wine bar with 13 televisions and a menu with traditional bar food items and made-to-order sushi. Other food bars will offer pizza, pasta and sandwiches. The store also will offer a “grill-while-you-shop" option, in which onsite butchers and chefs will trim the customer’s selected cut of meat and cook it to order.

Mitchell hopes to open FreshTake in June 2024.

“The response has been great,” he said. “There's been a lot of buzz around the store. We’re just trying our best to explain it because there’s really nothing to compare it to, and there are a lot of questions floating around about what it is.”