Verdon Road resident Nate Walthington (left) drives longingly past Ellwood Thompson’s Natural Foods Market near Richmond’s Carytown almost every day, but is unsure if he would be allowed to shop there due to his beardless face and lack of little wire-frame glasses.“I don’t know if they’ll let me in,” says the baby-faced Walthington, rubbing his slick chin. “Every man I see go in and come out of there has a grey beard. Plus, I have perfect 20/20 vision, so I don’t have little round glasses either.”
Walthington is fairly certain the beard and glasses are requisites to shopping there, as are wearing natural fibers and Crocs. “I refuse to own Crocs, and all my suits are fairly shiny,” says Walthington, literally talking himself out of even attempting to enter the store as he sits in the parking lot, staring longingly at the bearded men and unusual women enjoying Hummus, pesto and spelt sandwiches out on the front porch. “I do own a black turtleneck, so I got that going on.”
A young woman with a silver skull nose ring, a Black Flag t-shirt and dyed jet-black hair working checkout insisted that beardless men are welcome to shop there anytime. “Of course we prefer the male shopper have a beard, but it is not a prerequisite.” She said, bagging four heavy boxes of something called “Dr. Bixby’s Energizing Naturally Pulverized Suet Cakes” into a canvas sack for an older gentleman shopper (left) that – surprise – had a beard and wore Crocs.Walthington has many times in the past attempted a beard in an effort to blend in with the hirsute clientele of the natural food purveyor, but “It doesn’t come in right – it’s dark brown and patchy. I look like a half-shaved Geico caveman.”
Walthington says in the meantime he will continue to shop at Ukrops “until either I grow a decent beard and get glasses, or until Ukrops becomes a Piggly Wiggly, whichever comes first.”
