8300 block of King Drive

NOTE: This property is actually owned by the Park Manor Christian Church and JP Paulus reports that at a community meeting in January they had presented their plans for the property.

Worlee's comment in the post about Karriem Beyah who owns Farmer's Best Market on 47th Street in the Back of the Yard neighborhood gives me the reason to post these pictures of that lot and my thoughts. Of course since in the article I blogged about his store is currently struggling it might be difficult for him to consider building a store on this currently vacant lot on the 8300 block of King Drive.

There was once a building here. In my lifetime, it was both a state police building and a church. Before my time, however, it was once a Jewel's. The building itself was said to have burned down a few years ago. Apparently the church either couldn't or aren't able to return and rebuild. This could be an opportunity for any potential commercial builder. Especially if this was to only bring another grocery store to our area. Whether black-owned or another chain, although surely black-owned would be preferred.

There is a cross here on some grassy pasture. I can't imagine that this grass was always here. The building that was once here had to have started at the parking lot.

Most likely this was the interior of the building. A lot of concrete waiting for something to be built on top of it!

Had to get a better shot of the concrete or perhaps more accurately hints of the foundation of this old building.

Well whatever happened to this building they couldn't get the tiles off the concrete.

These last two pics are of the parking lot. On the north end you see in the distance closer to 83rd Street is a laundromat currently. If anyone was able to make a move to this part of Chatham parking will not likely be an issue. Hopefully developing this lot will be considered something worthwhile.

What say you?

Chatham Food Market Outdoor Cookout

Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 1st to be held at the Chatham Food Market's parking lot at 327 E. 79th Street. CAPCC blog tells us what's going on:

Everyone in the community is invite to stop by for the great servings of food with games and prizes! Vendors, including Frito-Lay, among others, will be there exhibiting their food offerings. Mr. Derrick Griffin (of Griffin Cleaners) and his wife will join in with the cooking. So all customers and the community as a whole are welcome to come to the Outdoor Cookout beginning at 11 A.M. until 5 P.M.

How about that for a non-Wal-Mart story?

Chatham Food Market might want to update their website with this story.

Special grocery deals in the mail

Still have yesterday's mail? What i mean is -- the ads that come in the Tuesday mail? If you just automatically throw them out -- you might want to think again!

They have some special local-only deals in them.

One is from Chatham Food Market. They have stopped hand delivering their sales paper in the neighborhood, but have instead put it in the mail. They've got some good deals and have added the store's personalities on the top. The Market has apparently disassociated itself with Certified Grocers, at least as far as ads (where other stores in the Certified chain/alliance have had similar items on sale, including lesser-known brand labels).

Also, the Jewel's (yes, i know the sign says Jewel, without an 's'...but this is Chicago!) on 87th also has some special deals just for that location. And those do NOT appear in the Sunday Tribune!

Let us know what you find!

Chatham Food Market feature - Robert

Last week's ad for Chatham Food Market featured Robert from the meat department.

Last week was Ms. Bernice. This seems like a great idea, and helps us get to know more personally the people who serve us at this local grocery market. Yes, the owner has changed hands, but some of the employees are the ones you have known for many years -- so at least support them!

Chatham Food Market honors its history

Though it seems like several people have stopped shopping at Chatham Food Market (because it is now owned by, as one community resident said in a public meeting, “A-rabs”), they are actually honoring its history as Chatham Food Center.

They have a new website. It’s just a home page at this point, but they start off with honoring Leonard and Donna Harris.

The website address, chathamfoodmarket.com, is in on the latest ad, which you may have gotten in the mail. In it, it honors longtime employee Ms. Bernice. I also know some have been laid off from Chatham Food Market, which then affected sales. But it might be wise to relent on your anger, as Ms. Bernice and others are in fact still employed there.

Chatham Food Legacy contnues -- outside of our neighborhood!

Illinois still has one African-American grocery store…

Unfortunately, it’s not in Chatham anymore. The former owners of Chatham Food, Leonard and Donna Harris, sold it because their children were not interested in continuing the family business. So at least for a short while, there were NO black-owned full line grocery stores in Illinois. (No, Moo and Oink don't count)

However, John and Maggie Anderson of the Ebony Experiment (where they are attempting to buy from only black-owned businesses) are going to Farmers Best Market.

Comment on service at Chatham Foods

I just approved this comment for publishing:

I purchased chicken nuggets from Chatham Foods on Sunday, March 1. When I went to prepare them today, March 3, they were moldy and to my surprise there were three price stickers on this package dating back to January 13th. Is this the quality of service we can expect from the new owners of Chatham Foods? This is appalling and unacceptable!

This was a comment to the post about Chatham Foods having new ownership.

I won't comment since I've never actually shopped there. I'm sure that there are many people who have shopped there you would like to opine on the service at Chatham Foods. I would welcome them in this post.

It doesn't matter if you've had a good experience or a bad experience. Please discuss any possible differences between the original and current owners. Were the Harris' better? Are the new owners better? Why or why not?

I will remind you that comments are moderated so I hope your responses are thought out and intelligent. Let's evaluate how the old neighborhood grocery store is doing right now!

Last Full Service Black-Owned Grocer in Chicago Changes Ownership

Chicago Public Radio has more on this story.

Something worth pulling from this story, but read the whole thing or at least play the audio.

A few years ago a black-owned grocer in Chatham sold to an Arab owner. Tate says residents weren’t happy with customer service and stopped shopping there. The grocer is now a dollar store. There are other options for Chatham residents, big-box grocers not too far away. But they aren’t in the neighborhood. And Chatham Food Center is enough for many people.

That store on 87th Street used to be Food Basket. And here's the store in question.

Perhaps I should visit the Chatham Food Center. I'd be doing this as a new customer but I understand that there are those who wish that dollar store wasn't on 87th Street anyway. I would hate to see another grocery store close and then turn into a dollar store.

Chatham grocery store no longer Black-owned

From the Chicago Defender, I find this unfortunate!

For 25 years, the Chatham Food Center has been a rarity in Chicago–the only Black-owned supermarket, serving grocery shoppers on the South Side. But that era has ended now that the store, at 327 E. 79th St., has been sold to a Lebanese investor.

“Let me say right off the bat that our preference was to sell to someone Black,” said Leonard Harris, 63, who founded the store with his wife Donna, 25 years ago. “But when we could not find a Black buyer we started looking 'outside the box' and that's when Mr. (Ahmad) Kleit approached us with an offer.”

Harris said he expects the ownership change to be complete by July. Harris said he plans to take the proceeds of the sale and invest in future economic development for the community. While declining to discuss the selling price, Harris said the store posted $4.4 million in sales last year, a figure it has averaged for the last few years.

“We're reviewing all our options,” Harris said referring to his next business move. At one point Harris had asked his oldest son, a Morehouse College graduate, if he was interested in taking over the store's day-to-day management. “My son is not interested in the business. His interest is in real estate right now,” he added.

And another contributing factor to Harris selling the business was his inability to expand the store size. “We are land locked. We would not have been able to expand the store unless we had built from the top up and that was not economically feasible,” Harris added.

“It just made more economic sense to sell rather than to spend money to build on top of the store or relocate.” The two-story, 4,000-square-feet building includes a 20-car parking lot and is located across the street from Ruggles Elementary School. Even though the new owner is not Black, Harris said Kleit has met specific demands made by him to ensure that the store would continue to contribute, economically, to the Chatham community.

“The new owner has opened an account at Seaway National Bank, agreed to retain all (40) employees and will continue to purchase some products from Black vendors,” Harris said. “By him doing this it says a lot and I think the community should give him a chance and continue to support the Chatham Food Center.” Among the Black products sold at Chatham Food Center are Reggio's pizza, butter pecan syrup by Michele Foods and Glory greens.

That's business!!! At least the store will remain an oasis in the food desert even if it isn't black owned. It's too bad that I don't know when this story was written.

You should know this store has been a semi-frequent topic of discussion.

Exterior photos of the Chatham Food Center

Just for fun, I decided to look over at the photo sharing site Flickr for some pics of the Chatham Food Center grocery store. Most of these pics are fairly recent but surely the scene won't look much different if one was to decide to visit that establishment anytime soon.

Chatham Food Center: An oasis in a ‘food desert’

An article from the Methods Reporter. I don't know how I missed this but I don't normally read the Methods Reporter. This article comes from earlier this month on March 6th...

As the only black-owned supermarket in Chicago, Chatham Food Center stands as a vestige from an era that saw the dilapidation of many businesses In the South Side’s Chatham community, a neighborhood now teeming with fast food restaurants.

Inside this 4,000-square-foot, 25-year-old supermarket owned by Leonard Harris, 63, and his wife Donna, 50, at 327 E. 79th St., soul music zings through the air. It’s a subtle reminder that this neatly manicured grocery store is indeed the last of its kind, according to the Chicago Urban League.

But it’s also a multi-million dollar business run by a University of Chicago MBA.

Chatham Food Center, which remains open 24 hours, seven days a week and employs about 45 people, helps stabilize a community struggling to find nutritious food choices. The steady flow of customers streaming in and out the doors reinforces its utility. Stepping outside Chatham Food Center, a Burger King and a McDonald’s appear ominously in the background on 79th street.

According to Chicago researcher Mari Gallagher, Chatham is a “food desert.” Gallagher, who in 2006 published a study “Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago,” describes these neighborhoods as areas with isolated grocery stores but surfeited with fast food, convenience stores and liquor stores that offer scant wholesome food options.

According to the study, Chicago’s majority black areas such as Chatham where the black citizenry comprises 98 percent of the population, according to the most recent census data, are disproportionately plagued by a lack of healthy food options. This, she argues, causes obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease to gush through the community. “In areas that have few grocery stores there is a greater preponderance of fast food,” she says. “People will resort to the things they have in their neighborhood more often than not.”

There was a time, Harris says, that Chatham became not only a food desert but also an “economic desert,” as children matured and left home, and as husbands died, leaving their wives widowed. Before the “graying of Chatham. you had one household shopping a grocery basket for five people, now you had a household shopping a grocery basket for one person,” he says. Economic instability plagued the community, says Ald. Freddrenna M. Lyle (6th), declaring Chatham had “aged in place.”

Before turning to a joint program formed by the Chicago Urban League and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management - called “nextOne” - Chatham Food Center found itself entwined in an economic maelstrom, almost giving way to stagnant revenues and competition that huffed, puffed, and tried to blow it down.

Between 2001 and 2006, business was sluggish. “Sales over the last five years had declined 10 percent and now [in 2006] they were flat,” Harris says. What’s more, he says, there was increased competition; a Dominick’s supermarket and a Jewel Osco supermarket were encroaching on his business.

With the help of marketing, finance and management coaches provided by the Urban League, that all changed. “We shifted from social services to economic development,” stated Urban League CEO Cheryle R. Jackson in a press release. The program gave the Harrises a guide to spark revenue but also helped them continue their efforts of serving a community where they both grew up.

The Harrises believe the time-built loyalty of their customers allowed them to stay afloat despite an aging population and the deep-pocketed competition.

In fact, Donna Harris, whose day job is executive director of the Chatham Business Association, says, “We feel like the community owns the store, not us.” Leonard Harris remembers instances when customers would tap him on the shoulder and whisper of external and internal theft. “This is their store and I’m just a caretaker for them,” he says.

Customers say that Chatham Food Center is more appealing than its competitors because of its meats, fresh produce, short wait times, customer service and proximity to their home. “This is the only one that’s still together,” Chatham resident Melvin Bradford said.

At Chatham Food Center, a gallon of milk costs $2.99. A gallon at Jewel ranges between $3.49 and $3.99. Dominick’s sells a gallon for $3.49. However, the same loaf of 100 percent Sara Lee whole wheat bread costs $2.89 at Chatham, $2.29 at Jewel and $2.69 at Dominick’s. Chatham resident Lee B. Tate, 74, who has been shopping at Chatham Food Center since its inception, says though it’s not always cheaper, “the butcher always cuts the meat the way I like it for free.”

“They help with your groceries. They help you to your car. They are very nice people to be around,” she adds.

Berniece Gibbs, a bookkeeper who has been working at the supermarket for nine years, says there have been occasions when elderly customers have come in, only to find their coveted item out of stock. But, she says, Mr. Harris has ordered and then hand-delivered those items to his customers.

His management style reflects lessons he learned while under tutelage of the now-deceased Ernest Collins, a linchpin in the Chatham community, supermarket owner and co-founder of Seaway National Bank. “Essentially, I said ‘I want to be like you when I grow up,’” Harris reminisces. Following Collins’ guidance, in 1972 he invested $15,000 in Food Basket Inc. for 3 percent of the company. Seven years later, he left as president of the company, holding an 11 percent stake and with a dazzling new Executive MBA degree from the University of Chicago that Collins helped to pay for.

Ever the shrewd businessman, when asked about the challenges his supermarket faces, he promptly shifts the conversation and says, “lets talk about the opportunities.” Behind closed doors, employees talk about Harris’s conservative, if not frugal, spending habits and his need to stay abreast. “He is a hands-on owner,” says Fernando Manlove, a deli and meat department associate. “He gets into the trenches and I like that.”

Does anyone think this store wouldn't survive a Wal-Mart? Looking at this article the formula is there. Who knows if the mantra against Wal-Mart is that they put smaller stores out of business Chatham Food Center could put that to rest. We shall see!

ADDITION: I should note that Dominick's was right down the street on 79th but within the last two years they've closed down, but then following business news Dominick's have their issues. Though on this news I'm going back a few years with a strike and at one point Safeway, the store's corporate owners, putting the grocery chain on the auction block.

EXTRA ADDITION: Same article but this time from Medill Reports and scroll down to your right a little under some pictures (or the map and graph) is a video with Leonard Harris and his wife talking about their grocery store.

Chatham Food Center in the news again

We wrote about Chatham Food Center already, with a customer review some time in the near future.

They are initially featured in today's Chicago SUn Times metro section under an article :Chicago Urban League: Getting down to business --
Urban League program offers the keys to success to black-owned companies

They have a more specific feature -- 'Aha' moments change Chatham Food owners

Here's that article:

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES
Leonard and Donna Harris, founders of Chatham Food Center have had some "aha" moments, since linking with the program.

"The primary 'aha' was that as a CPA and MBA from the University of Chicago, I'm thinking that I'm an entrepreneur. I came to the understanding that I wasn't," Leonard Harris said.

"I was a small-business operator No. 1. No. 2, I wasn't a growth business. I was a lifestyle business, but the third thing was as long as I was working in the business and wearing all these hats and not necessarily doing any of them really well, I was never going to grow the business."

The Harrises opted to hire a general manager to run things at the store, so they can fully take advantage of the program.

Since being in the program, they've examined research conducted by the Local Initiatives Support Corp./Chicago, which found that in 12 South Side communities, roughly $250 million is spent on groceries outside those communities because of the absence of stores.

That's opportunity, the couple said.

"Our goal is to come up with a new model, to open stores in a couple of different communities simultaneously," said Donna Harris.

They envision their stores as anchors in the development of new South Side shopping centers that include other businesses that meet the needs of inner-city communities. That way, dollars that are now leaving will stay.

"What this program is all about is jump-starting, revitalizing small businesses in the community for the purpose of economic development," Donna Harris said. "We're talking about employing people from the community, about wealth creation, about being a part of the revitalization of communities, so it's about more than just opening more grocery stores."

This news about the Hyde Park Co-Op got me thinking

That story has been swirling around the local media as of late got me thinking about neighborhood grocery options in the general neighborhood.

There isn't a shortage exactly. I noted a vid of a small-time grocer in the neighborhood on this blog and I read somewhere that he got his start by working for another neighborhood grocer, a man by the name of Ernest T. Collins. I'll get back to him in a minute.

Anyway there's a couple of groceries on 87th Jewel's and I believe Cub Foods. There's an Aldi's along the Dan Ryan expressway somewhere past 75th Street. Until the last couple or so years there was a Dominick's on 79th off the Dan Ryan.

I might be missing a few along the way but let's get back to Ernest T. Collins.

He owned and operated The Food Basket. He was even a founder of Seaway National Bank as this bust of him at the bank denotes. Apparently he had three stores in the area one at 87th and King Drive, which by the way was still a grocery store until recently when it became a dollar store, another on 103rd Street and King Drive, and another at 79th and Yates. BTW, I got this info from an article I found about Chatham Food Center owner Leonard Harris and his background. I don't know about the 79th and Yates location but 103rd and King Drive is still open today.

Anyway I'm sure there are other grocery options in the area that provides fresh fruits and vegetable not snacks such as Hostess cakes and Jays potato chips. I have no doubt that we're not in the midst of a food desert but I'm sure that I haven't listed every possible grocery store neighborhood owned or not that exists. Perhaps someone out there might have some ideas.

Here's that bust that I've referred to. Located at Seaway National Bank...

Chatham Food Center

A grocery store located in the Chatham neighborhood on 79th Street near King Drive. This video is courtesy of YoChicago where they stopped by to visit the store's owner, Leonard Harris.