Daily Table Grocery
Open: 2023-2025
There have been a few efforts around the country to start nonprofit grocery stores. There a few models that have worked, but it's still a relatively new, somewhat unproven approach. In 2015, former Trader Joe's president Doug Rauch started a nonprofit grocer in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood (paywall), and Daily Table has since opened locations in Roxbury and here in Mattapan, along with locations outside of Boston in Cambridge and Salem. While the other stores made it longer, closing just last month, the Mattapan store pulled the plug sooner and closed just two years after opening. Daily Table said the 3,000 square foot store was receiving as little as 70% less traffic than other locations.
I did get the chance to visit, though, in the summer of 2024. The Daily Table stores were an unusual format, similar to (but much smaller than) a store like Grocery Outlet. They got various odds and ends of products not sold to other chains or that are cheap to purchase, and then sold those products at well below market-rate prices. Because it's a nonprofit model, the actual selling of goods doesn't need to sustain the business, but it has an important part in keeping the operation sustainable. Still, that means they're particularly vulnerable to any variations in food prices, inflation, and well, the world in general.
The Mattapan store was located in the ground floor of a newly-built mixed-use development immediately next to the Mattapan T stop. (For those unfamiliar, the T is Boston's light rail/subway system.)
So because of the fluctuating supply chain and limited product assortment, the stores were very small. They had only the essentials, but again, they're sold well below market-rate.
Mattapan is one of the lowest-income neighborhoods of Boston, although I believe it's not the lowest. Nearby Roxbury, which also had a Daily Table, has a median household income less than half of the city's overall.
This store is located half a block in from the main intersection of Mattapan, which is where River Street, Cummins Highway, and Blue Hill Avenue all come together. There's another supermarket just west of that intersection, an America's Food Basket, which you can tour here.
Open: 2023-2025
Owner: nonprofit
Previous Tenants: none
Cooperative: none
Location: 474 River St, Mattapan, MA
Photographed: July 6, 2024
Having visited Daily Table and America's Food Basket, tomorrow we're headed just west to check out a discount supermarket in Hyde Park!
We have one out in the Utica (NY) area called Bargain Grocery that is on this type of model (though not sure they are non-profit or just connected to such groups).
ReplyDeleteThey seem to do well enough that they recently set one up in Troy, just outside Albany.
The one in Utica was in an area that had access to those in lower income settings, but also had parking for others who wished to shop and was in an area that was not discouraging people from coming there from other places (as can be the case in some of the city type areas).
They also tried something similar in Albany (using an old McDonalds building), but that one didn't do so well (and one of the ones running it was in trouble as well).