Who's the Wellest on 45th?

This weekend we went to both Bee Well on 45th and the new Pharmaca in Wallingford Center to try and contrast and compare the two after taking in some neighborly bitching about the chain "integrative pharmacy" that's set to crowd out the indie vitamin shoppe.

We walked into Pharmaca and were assaulted by about half a dozen friendly store employees. Can they help us find anything? Well, first, what exactly do you sell here? A ten-minute exploration unearthed the answer: they sell dietary supplements and organic versions of just about everything that they sell across the street at Bartells. We bought a bar of Herban Cowboy soap and a bar of Dagoba chocolate and left.

Down the street at Bee Well we were left to our own devices by the staff, who sat at the register and had a conversation with a patron about someone with prostate cancer starting a raw food program. There were a lot of vitamins on the shelves. We left through the adjacent smoothy shop, buying nothing.

The truth is that Seattlest is very poorly qualified to judge the merits of a supplement store as we're frightened and confused by ninety percent of the contents of both stores (as well as the overly-supplemented Seattleites who buy them). We're about ready to accept a Wal-Mart into the sparse Wallingford Center, though, if that's what it takes to clear out some of the cobwebs. Anyway, Pharmaca and Bee Well do stock a lot of similar items, but they seem to be targeting different market segments. We declare there to be room for them both.