Raphael Wright has long dreamed of bringing something to Jefferson Chalmers that the eastside Detroit neighborhood has been lacking — a grocery store.
After six years of crowdfunding, and passing out grocery boxes to fight food insecurity, Wright has finally opened Neighborhood Grocery at 500 Manistique St. It’s reportedly the first Black-owned grocery store in Detroit since 2014.
The store is mostly crowdfunded but Wright received a Motor City Match grant for $85,000 in February that helped push him toward the finish line. The grocery store, which had a soft opening on Sunday, Oct. 8, is providing an option for people to get fresh produce and pantry staples in a neighborhood where there’s mostly fast food and corner stores.
Wright often refers to Detroit as a “food swamp” because it’s easier to get a fast food burger than a healthy plate or ingredients for a home-cooked meal. Many Detroiters have to drive outside of their neighborhood to shop for groceries, and the building Neighborhood Grocery occupies was a former liquor store, many of which dot the city.
“There’s no grocery store over there within a mile, there’s just fast food, and a lot of that stuff is even closed now,” Wright tells Metro Times. “So we’re filling the need for people to be able to come and get their basics — sugar, bread, milk, stuff like that. One customer came and said they hadn’t been able to get grits in a month because they don’t have a car, so being able to come and get that fulfilled her soul.”
Wright’s original vision was to stock the shelves with produce grown at Detroit-based urban farms, but he says he still hasn’t figured out the logistics of those partnerships and the growing seasons is starting to slow down for the year. For now, he sources produce and meat from the Eastern Market. Neighborhood Grocery also offers dairy products, seasonings, frozen foods, dry goods, and snacks like any other supermarket would. It also stocks local products like Baobab Fare’s Burundi coffee and Pili hot sauce.
“I wanted to provide people with everything they need,” Wright says. “The mission is still there to have local produce, but we still gotta work that out… Right now I’m just focusing on having Neighborhood Grocery be a regular grocery store. I want to serve the neighborhood and be a point of access for fresh food and take care of your needs if you live in the neighborhood.”
So far, Wright says, the response from residents has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The neighbors have been waiting for this project for a long time,” he says. “I knew friends and family would support [me] but it’s great to see people in the neighborhood come and check us out.”
Though Neighborhood Grocery has a planned grand opening slated for Nov. 18, Wright is adamant that the store is fully ready to serve the neighborhood. Current hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
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