Liquor store turned new Good Foods Market, DC’s Ward 8 just got its second grocery store.
A new Good Food Markets location opened in Southwest D.C.’s Bellevue neighborhood this week, making it just the second full-service grocery store in Ward 8. The new location on South Capitol Street offers fresh produce and groceries, prepared food, a community room for meetings — and, starting next year, a full service cafe. It joins other Good Food Markets locations in Ward 5 and Seat Pleasant, Md. — and is one step towards improving food access for residents in the Bellevue and Washington Highlands neighborhoods of Ward 8, who have long lacked healthy and affordable food options close to home.
“I myself am a part of this community, so I’m glad that this store is here,” said Shandella Blakeney, a store manager at Good Food Markets and a senior at Trinity Washington University, at the store’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday. “I understand the inconvenience personally when it comes to grocery stores within this community.”
The project broke ground in January of 2019 and is funded through a mix of public and private funding, including a loan from the Bainum Family Foundation and several D.C. government grants and loans.
ANC Commissioner Monique Diop, who represents the Bellevue neighborhood, told the audience at the event that bringing Good Food Markets to this area was a “long journey.” While Ward 8 has a population of about 80,000 people, it only had one full-service grocery store before Good Food Markets opened — the Giant on Alabama Avenue Southeast.
“Right here in Bellevue, how many people are going to walk to the Giant? And you can take the bus, but how long is that gonna take?” asked Diop. “Right now, Good Food is here. It is walkable. It is in our community.”
In the store’s opening, Diop saw a broader lesson: that residents of Ward 8 should continue asking for the amenities they need.
“Tell the powers that be exactly what you want to see in your community,” she said.
Majority-Black neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River have long been deprived of healthy food access. In D.C., more than three-quarters of food deserts are in Wards 7 and 8. (Food deserts are defined as neighborhoods where residents have to walk more than half a mile to get to a grocery store, over 40 percent of households don’t have an available vehicle, and the median household income is less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level for a family of four.) Residents have long said the lack of healthy food options near their homes is evidence of structural racism.
In recent years, residents, nonprofits, and government officials have launched several efforts to address the lack of access to healthy, affordable groceries and limited sit-down restaurant options in Wards 7 and 8.
Residents are in the process of developing a food co-op east of the river. The Capital Area Food Bank launched a mobile grocery store truck called Curbside Groceries to help close food access gaps in Ward 8. In 2019, the German grocery chain Lidl announced it would open a new location at the Skyland Town Center development, which would make it the third full-service grocery store in Ward 7. And down the street from the new Good Food Markets location, the food advocacy nonprofit DC Greens plans to open up The Well at Oxon Run, an urban farm and community wellness space, next year.
Earlier this week, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also announced the first recipients of a new grant through the Food Access Fund, which provides funding for new restaurants and grocery stores in areas of the city with low food access. As part of the program, restaurants like HalfSmoke, Highland Café, MLK Deli, and DCity Smokehouse will open up new locations in Wards 7 and 8.
Bowser said these efforts to expand access to food — particularly healthy food — were especially important as the coronavirus pandemic laid bare the city’s deep racial and geographic health disparities.
“What we’ve seen for sure in the last 24 months is we need to do everything possible to make sure our communities have healthy life, lifestyles, food options, food access, and we’ve been deprived for too long,” said Bowser.
During the ribbon-cutting event, Bowser also made a subtle reference to her recently-announced re-election campaign for Mayor, saying that projects like the new Good Food Markets are possible when you stay in office for a long time.
“That’s what you can do with longevity,” she said. “We’ve been able to see some things from start to finish, and we want to finish a lot more with your help and your support.”
Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, who recently announced that he would challenge Bowser, joining At-Large Councilmember Robert White in next year’s mayoral race, also spoke at the ribbon cutting. White thanked Bowser, saying “it was truly her leadership that helped push us to where we are today.”
White added that he grew up right near the new Good Food Markets location in Bellevue.
“I remember this corner used to be a liquor store … so this is a transformation,” said White. “We are saying we need a healthy lifestyle, and this is the beginning.”