For Those With a Healthy Appetite

Wild Oats Community Market is the place to pick up a little brown rice udon --and a little attitude adjustment.

It’s a holistic-in-one natural foods market that’s after your mind and body, a grocery store with a deli, bakery and salad, juice and espresso bar--and masseuse.

Wild Oats Community Market in Pasadena opened its 13,000-square-foot store on Jan. 12 in the former Jurgensen’s Market building at Lake Avenue and California Boulevard. In the patio, black wrought-iron tables topped with vases of fresh flowers provide a prime view of South Lake Avenue and the San Gabriel Mountains. Inside, distractions include music ranging from reggae to Ravel’s “Bolero”; the masseuse ($7 for a 15-minute back-and-shoulders massage) resides in a screened-off corner.

The eatery section pulls in diners ranging from the granola-with-whole-milk set to the hamburger-and-Diet-Coke crowd.

That means cheesy chicken enchiladas ooze majestically next to the deli’s hijiki seaweed salad; big, bad chocolate chip cookies muscle fat-free peach muffins for bakery space, and the aroma of caffe lattes mingles with the freshly mown scent of fresh-squeezed wheatgrass juice.

But it’s also a place where the lacto-ovo-vegetarian is coddled alongside the meat-and-potatoes fan.

“Around here, they go for the standards, but they also go for (food) a little different,” said General Manager Patrick Gilliland.

Wild Oats is busiest on weekends, Gilliland said. Most of the customers are health conscious but no sticklers--they buy up the dairy-free miso soup or the ika (squid) sushi but are not above indulging in an occasional Wild Oats submarine sandwich (ham, salami, provolone) or chocolate mousse tart.

“They demand more,” Gilliland said. “Less seaweed and things like that . . . Our focus is on high quality. If it’s a hamburger, it’ll be natural meat.”

Even the bad food is not so bad--most steak cuts, for instance, are only 5% fat and free of hormones, steroids and antibiotics. The market wanted wriggle room, a chance to stray from the all-vegetarian themes of some of the chain’s other stores (There are 12 Wild Oats markets nationwide).

“I see us as the chameleons of the natural food world,” Gilliland said.

Deli selections, which include 30 salads and 15 entrees, vary daily, depending on the whims of the French chef, Pascal Allaire, who has a doctorate in natural foods study. Allaire isn’t shy about throwing alfalfa seeds into the wild rice and yam salad, or soft tofu into the zucchini-almond dip. But fear not--the deli dish signs list each offering’s ingredients and other selling points, such as its low-fat or sodium-free content.

Entree and salad prices vary, with most running about $5 or $6 per pound. You can get away with as little as $1.99 each for a vegetarian patty or spend up to $8.99 a pound for hormone-free lemon chicken. Prices in the vegetable and fruit juice bar range from $1.39 to $2.59 for an 8-ounce serving of carrot, cucumber, beet or other combinations; and the espresso bar whips up orders ranging from 99 cents to $1.65.

Wild Oats also sells fresh daily breads from Il Fornaio and La Brea, including wheat, olive and rosemary selections. In the next few weeks, the market will open a grill, firing up sprout burgers, charbroiled tofu, hamburgers and skewered vegetables. Plans are also under way for a pasta bar.

The sensory overload does not escape Wild Oats managers, who have set up a toll-free hot line for questions about the difference between radicchio and radiatore pasta or tempeh and tofu.

Wild Oats is at 663 South Lake Ave., Pasadena. Hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.