The neighborhood grocery: Looking to the past for a greener future

Fifty years ago, every neighborhood was dotted with small mom-and-pop grocery stores that provided friendly, personalized service. Expanding expressways, plentiful gasoline, the ever-burgeoning presence of automobiles, suburban flight and other factors turned consumers toward large centralized stores. So neighborhood grocery stores have gone the way of local tailors. More than 100,000 small retailers have closed in the past 20 years and been replaced by big box stores.

But big stores (some with more than five acres of shelf space) don’t fit into everyone’s picture of a greener future. Concerned about food safety, factory farms and their own environmental footprint, many consumers are returning to the past.

The modern neighborhood grocery offers locally grown produce, milk, eggs, meat and other products that support area farmers and reduce the transportation required to get food from field to fridge. It is these unique qualities that have helped foster a re-emergence of small stores in an era dominated by big-store competition.

The small Columbia grocery The Root Cellar, owned by Walker Claridge and Kimberly Griffin, opened in 2002 and has been an informational resource for other small groceries, including D&D Main Street Market in Jefferson City and Local Harvest in St. Louis.

“I feel that my role as a local food purveyor is also that of an educator,” Griffin said. “I want to educate other businesses and especially my customers. I’m the middleman between the farmer and the consumer. When a person buys food that comes from 3,000 miles away, even if it’s certified organic, you still can’t know what the growing practices truly are. It’s different when you know the farmers and buy directly from them.”

One of the services that The Root Cellar provides for its customers is a combined approach to Community Supported Agriculture. CSAs are ways for people to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Customers purchase a “share”, which gives farmers cash flow early in the season, and then the customers can collect a box of produce weekly throughout the season.

One complaint with some CSAs is that shareholders will often get a whole lot of the same kind of food. At the Root Cellar, customers are able to buy into a group of CSAs and are provided with a weekly box of mixed produce from several local farms. Also, instead of paying a large sum at the start of the growing season, members can pay for the food weekly.

“Customers are always happy with the variety of fresh, local produce,” Griffin said.

Another small, locally owned grocery business in Columbia is Clovers Natural Market, which has a store near the intersection of Forum Boulevard and Chapel Hill Road and one on East Broadway, across from Stephens Lake Park and beside another small grocery store that’s been in business since the early 1960s, Eastgate Foods.

Clovers sells organic produce along with gourmet and specialty products, including coffees, teas, vitamins, herbs and books and magazines on healthy living.

Damon Northweather, who owns D&D Main Street Market in Jefferson City with his wife, Dana, said that their market is for people “who don’t want to shop at big, anonymous stores. We started providing produce because people would come in for it. They stop by on a walk through the neighborhood or on the drive home from work.

“We have knowledge of our product that you’re not going to find at a bigger store. Our prices compare, too. I’ve shopped at bigger stores, and there’s a misconception that their prices are so much lower. From what I’ve seen, that just isn’t true.”

The Northweathers owned a garden shop on the city’s outskirts for four years, but their move to the Jefferson City neighborhood of West Main Street last April changed the whole dynamic of the store — and the neighborhood.

“The neighbors are happy that we took over a rundown gas station,” said the Northweathers. The Main Street Market is quickly becoming an integral part of the community and hosts evening block parties, watermelon seed spitting contests and jack o’ lantern carving.

“We feature local musicians every week, weather permitting, and we gave out candy for Halloween,” Dana Northweather said.

St. Louis also supports neighborhood groceries. Maddie Ernest, who has owned Local Harvest with Patrick Hormine for more than two years, said: “I just knew our store would be successful. The time is right, and people are interested in local food and business. Not everyone wants the mega-shopping experience.”

Local Harvest is part of the community. It is located in the Tower Grove neighborhood of south St. Louis on Morgan Ford, a street that boasts many small businesses.

Customers of neighborhood groceries are often environmentally conscious, though access to stores affects who shops where. Many of the Root Cellar’s customers walk or bike to the store. “It might not seem like there is a neighborhood downtown, but there are a lot of people who live in lofts over the stores, and those people use our store,” Griffin said. “If they weren’t coming here, they’d probably just be walking to a convenience store. I’d like to think that they are all making a conscious choice to buy local food, but that just isn’t always the case. Easy access makes a difference.”

As city centers are revitalized, the need for smaller, centrally located groceries is likely to grow. The big box stores that serve large geographic areas might have to rethink their business plans.

As for the mom-and-pop groceries, Griffin has a plan: “I’ve never needed a bigger store. I would just like to open a lot of smaller stores in different neighborhoods. This is more of what our community needs.”

Leah Christian is with the MUEnvironmental Assistance Center. This story was featured in the November 2009 newsletter.