Ocean Beach People's Food Store
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Hi, I do not understand why the sources cites are not considered reliable or pertinent. Two of the citations deal directly with the store, so I do not see why they are seen as "passing mentions" when the store is all they discuss. I will look for citations in "established" sources such as the San Diego Union-Tribune and others and resubmit asap. Thank you for helping me to get this accepted for Wikipedia.
Feb 10, 2022. I found an article in the LA Times that is 100% about the food store and adds some nice examples of its history. I also found several articles in the San Diego Union-Tribune, but not about the store's beginnings. They do mention that a Chinese delegation visited the store to understand better how a cooperative functions in the US, but I did not include this article.
The Ocean Beach People's Food Store (OBPFS) was established in 1972 as part of a larger movement of cooperative food stores that developed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. It was "owned" by the people of the community and was focused on serving the needs of the community. Profit motive was usually not the focus of these cooperative stores and was not that of OBPFS.
The beginning[edit]
The OBPFS started out in 1971 as a collective of households that had set up a food distribution group.[1][2][3][4]. One family or household would collect the orders, go shop the food, and then distribute it to the other members. This household would rotate once a week. The Ocean Beach Free School (Free School) staff joined this collective in 1971[1]. As the collective grew, it became unwieldy to rotate the distribution center, so the Free School became the distribution point.
At one of the occasional meetings of the distribution group, they discussed opening a store front and three people volunteered (Willie Groome, Diane Miller, and Davis Hayden)[5]. Willie and Diane rented a house at 4859 Voltaire Street directly across from the Free School location on Voltaire Street and the three of them spent a few weeks turning it into a food store. The store opened on August 19, 1972[6]. On the store's opening day the only food items were bags of dried fruit and nuts that Willie, Diane, and Davis (the "Managers") weighed and packed the night before. The store made less than $20 that first day and did not break $20 in sales until some fresh fruit was brought in for the weekend. Fortunately, by the third week the store was breaking $100 a day in sales. As the initial markup for food was set at a max of 20%, the store needed to break $100 a day ($20 in profit) to pay for the rent and utilities. The store passed that in the third week and expanded rapidly in volume every month thereafter[7]. "After 6 months, it was grossing $11,000 a month"[4]
Expansion in original location and organizational structure[edit]
The first major expansion of the OBPFS was the addition of refrigerators, the first one being an old household one that was given to the store[4]. As the store was not built as a food store; the managers had to remove some windows to get commercial sized refrigerators inside. At one point, the refrigeration space had become so limited that they built a small refrigerated shed in the parking lot to store cold items. Early on, the managers decided that the store's markup on essential items such as bread, milk, cheese, and eggs would be only 10% so as to serve the needs of the community better.
Within three to four months the store volume was greatly outside the ability of three people to manage. The store needed "volunteers" to keep it functioning, so the managers decided to pay volunteers with food credits and soon there was a cadre of perhaps 20 different people that worked in the store in various capacities[6]. (Note: the managers were also not paid and only received food credit with Willie and Diane living in a small apartment at the back of the store.) At times, the Free School student would also run the store for a day, running the cash registers, stocking the shelves, and helping customers. There were even some days where the managers would turn the cash registers around and let the customers check themselves out with no supervision[4][6]. At this time, there were cheese slicing parties in the kitchen, soon to expire food cooked into stews and other dishes that the store gave out free to those in need, and a clothes distribution center. The store basically became a center for community activities. The store even sponsored large free concerts with free food in Ocean Beach.
The next organizational change (at about the 6 to 8 months mark after opening) was to add more managers as again the store's expansion was phenomenal[6]. The first new manager was Deborah Menkart. Her success led to bringing in more managers for the store. The store's shopper base now ranged over the entire county of San Diego.
The move up Voltaire Street[edit]
Because the store at 4859 Voltaire Street was simply way too small for the volume of customers it served, in 1973 the store moved up to 4765 Voltaire street where it expanded greatly and is now called the Ocean Beach People's Organic Food Market.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Burns, Robert (2017). "OB Historical Society Presents: OB Activism in My Activist Youth". Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association. Retrieved January 12, 2022. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Gormlie, Frank (July 23, 2012). "A (Brief) History of Ocean Beach Grassroots Activism". OB Rag. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
- ↑ Porter, Doug (September 29, 2009). "The OB Peoples Food Coop". OB Rag. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Miller, Marjorie (September 24, 1984). "People's: Alternative Store Continues to Thrive After Others Vanish". The Los Angeles Times. pp. Local News page 1.
- ↑ Gormlie, Frank (August 9, 2012). "OB People's Celebrates 40 Years of Community". OB Rag. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Duvall, Eric (April 13, 2021). "A Page from History: Ocean Beach's little co-op that could". Point Loma - OB Monthly. Retrieved January 12, 2022. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Helvarg, David (December 7, 2000). "Freaks, Uppity Women, and Politicos: An Ocean Beach Reunion". San Diego Reader. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
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