Monadnock Food Co-op - Keene, NH

Monadnock Food Co-op
Opened: 2013

Owner: cooperatively owned

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: National Co-op Grocers

Location: 34 Cypress St, Keene, NH

Photographed: August 13, 2021

This is not our first food co-op in New Hampshire, but like the Concord co-op, it's a beautiful store with an exciting mix of local and natural products. This store was built in 2013, and it's a new-build -- you can tell that the building, inside and out, still feels pretty new. The cooperative food scene is alive and well in New England, and this 20,000 square foot supermarket is as good an indication as any.

You enter to produce on the left side, with dairy in the rest of the first aisle. Meat and seafood counters are on the back wall, along with packaged meats, while frozen foods are in the middle of the store. A large deli, prepared foods, and bakery area is on the right side of the store, along with a substantial cafe seating area. Since so many co-ops are set up this way, it feels intentional -- like the fact that the store is community-owned encourages it to find ways to be a community meeting spot, not just a retailer.

Inside, you can tell the store isn't brand new, but it certainly doesn't look its age. Maintenance here must be really good for a store almost 10 years old at the time of these pictures looking as good as it did. (That is, I can't find evidence it's been substantially remodeled since it opened, so this is pretty much what it looked like on opening day.)

Large bulk foods departments are also staples in almost any co-op grocer...

You won't see much activity in the prepared foods department (or the other service counters, for that matter) because I visited at night. They're simply closed for the day, not closed for good.

The cafe seating area is beyond the registers, with large windows looking out from the storefront.

Keene also has a couple of chain supermarkets, and you can see one of them here. Over and out for now, and next week The Market Report begins Nashua!