Dive Brief:

• Whole Foods has signed a deal to bring Square's iPhone- and iPad-based payments systems to its supermarkets. 
• The deal means Whole Foods workers could take on the person-and-cash-register model made famous by Apple stores. That would allow customers to avoid lines and have any employee with a phone "swipe" them out.
• Whole Foods plans to move slowly with Square. Consumers will first see the iPad checkouts at the store's ready-to-eat counters. Some Whole Foods locations will serve as labs to test other uses of the devices.

Dive Insight:

In our neighborhood, where Whole Foods is already beloved, news of the Square deal took on nearly epic proportions. Everyone we mentioned it to wasn't just pleased, they were euphoric.

This is more than a celebration of  the menage à trois of the three geek brands: Square, Whole Foods, and Starbucks (which already has a deal with Square). Rather, it seems to be a recognition that the only thing Whole Foods doesn't let customers do easily is dash in and buy a single item. Whole Foods simply isn't the sort of place where you can grab some milk or a box of cereal. It's a wonderful store, but it's not a convenience store.

But if every worker at Whole Foods had Square on his phone, that would change. And in our neighborhood, that is reason to celebrate.