A new mezzanine-level seating section opened Friday at the P Street Whole Foods. (Photo: TBD Staff)

If grocery stores are the clichéd pick-up spots of the modern era, the P Street Whole Foods has potentially brought cruising for dates while shopping to an entirely other level.

The mezzanine level, that is. With its grand opening on Friday, the new second floor seating section at the Logan Circle grocer brings with it any number of social possibilities. There are longer, communal tables, perfect for striking up a conversation with a stranger. There's also bar-style rail seating for those who prefer to stare not at their fellow in-store dining companions, but at the unsuspecting produce shoppers below.

It's easy enough to look up from the ground floor of the P Street Whole Foods produce section and see who's upstairs — views are unobstructed in both directions. But from their perch on the mezzanine Friday evening, Ashley Kircher and Brad Oliphant couldn't help wondering whether the people they were watching had any clue they were up there.

"They're in a public place, but they're entirely absorbed by their errands," Kircher says while surveying the scene below. She recalls that in her former home of San Francisco, singles checking out singles is a common enough occurrence at a certain Safeway that it's commonly referred to as the "Dateway," but this seems like something else entirely. "Now it's going to be like, 'Man by the pineapple.'"

"It's almost like a behind-the-scenes view," adds Oliphant.

With the mezzanine opening, large-scale interior renovations to the P Street Whole Foods are now mostly finished. A new wait-and-call express lane opened a couple of weeks ago, and the prepared food offerings have already increased with the addition of a Mediterranean food counter and two more hot and cold food bars. Next up? A fresh-baked pizza oven should be fired up for the first time any day now.

The view from the mezzanine at the P Street Whole Foods (Photo: Sommer Mathis)