Community-owned grocery store has served SLO for nearly 50 years. Look inside
At least once a week, M.J. Leimer walks over to SLO Food Co-op in San Luis Obispo with her dog Dante.
As soon as Leimer and her pet arrive at the grocery store at 2494 Victoria Ave., an employee runs out, greets the pair and hands over a dog biscuit.
Inside the store, Leimer picks up groceries ranging from fresh fruits and vegetables to nuts and hearty loaves of bread from local bakeries.
The store is stocked with all the staples she needs, Leimer told The Tribune, along with friendly workers that not only know her name but are also attentive to her needs.
It’s this “high level of care,” Leimer said, that has kept her returning to San Luis Obispo’s only community-owned marketplace for more than two decades.
“There’s a pulse on the community,” she said. “There’s a friendly throwback of good old-fashioned kindness and human connection, and you get a good array of one-of-a-kind things.”
She’s among a growing number of loyal customers coming to the co-op.
In April, SLO Food Co-op hit 1,700 members, according to the store’s marketing manager, Britain Traub.
Each of those members is a part-owner who’s bought into the mission of creating a healthy, sustainable community, she said.
After nearly 50 years in business, SLO Food Co-op is set on expansion while retaining the charm and quirkiness that has amassed the allegiances of so many San Luis Obispo residents.
SLO grocery store was 50 years in the making
The first iteration of what is now SLO Food Co-op started in the mid-1970s when a crew of community members decided to create a buying club and run it out of a home garage, according to the store’s website.
The group hoped to save money by buying groceries in bulk.
“(They) got together, placed orders for goods — generally organic goods they couldn’t get from the conventional grocery stores — and that blossomed into a storefront,” SLO Food Co-op general manager Zack Sheppard told The Tribune.
The buying club quickly leveled up to a building on Pismo Street, then moved to Francis Street where it officially became the Questa Co-op in 1979.
At the time, the co-op was a members-only business that required patrons to work shifts, Sheppard said.
However, by the mid-1980s, the store had opened up to the entire community — including non-members.
Before the digital era, the store’s membership system comprised a stack of index cards stuffed into a plastic recipe box, according to Rebecca Mailloux, SLO Food Co-op’s board president.
She compared the co-op to a shoebox packed with all of the products anyone could ever need.
“It was really cool. It was magical,” she said.
In 2013, the co-op underwent another major transformation when it moved to a more spacious location on Victoria Avenue and changed its name to SLO Natural Foods Co-op.
The store rebranded itself as SLO Food Co-op in 2019, its website said.
SLO Food Co-Op is stocked with organic produce, local goods
When customers walk into SLO Food Co-op, they’re confronted with a wall of vibrant organic produce.
Fruits for sale range from mandarins to mangoes, dragonfruit, kumquats and blood oranges.
Bright red bell peppers, purple cauliflower, crunchy carrots, rainbow chard, radishes and rutabaga are just some of the vegetables available to purchase.
It’s “everything you expect from a grocery store with none of the icky ingredients,” the co-op said on its website.
On the left side of the co-op, there’s a wellness center chock-full of vitamins, supplements and more than 300 culinary and medicinal herbs.
To the right are aisles filled with canned goods, household supplies, eggs, dairy products, frozen meat and vegan foods.
An entire row is dedicated to bulk goods where shoppers can fill up their own bags or containers with grains, flours, beans, nuts and more.
The store tries to stock as much locally sourced goods as possible, with the aim to be “an incubator” for Central Coast food producers, cottage industries in SLO County and SLO-based entrepreneurs, Traub said.
SLO Food Co-Op also makes an effort to stock and promote products that are owned or run by minority groups, including women, LGBTQ+, Hispanic and Black-owned businesses. Those goods are tagged as “inclusive trade” products in the store, Traub explained.
How co-op differs from your average supermarket
SLO Food Co-op membership costs $25 a year, or $300 up front, according to Traub.
Members get access to frequent deals and discounts at the store, but the main reason to invest is to be a part of the co-op community, she told The Tribune.
Each member is a owner of the store, she said.
“You get a vote, a share of equity, and that’s completely refundable if you ever stop shopping here,” she explained. “It’s just a way to invest in the community at the time that you’re shopping.”
Because the co-op is independently owned by members of the community, there’s more cost control and less price gouging than at a typical grocery store, Traub said.
“We aren’t owned by a separate group of shareholders who are demanding profits from us,” Sheppard explained. “What (members) are demanding of us is great food, great service. We’re accountable to the community, as opposed to some other entity. So it keeps dollars in the community. It keeps goodwill in the community.”
Part of the store’s mission is giving back, he said.
Every Tuesday, the co-op donates 2% of the day’s total sales to local nonprofit organizations. Since the effort launched in 2020, SLO Food Co-op has raised more than $66,000, according to the co-op’s website.
“We view ourselves like the heart of the community,” she said. “It’s a place where everybody’s welcome, regardless of income, background, identity of any sort ... is welcome in our doors.”
SLO’s only food co-op is ‘heart of the community,’ manager says
SLO Food Co-Op’s board president said she’s been shopping at the community-owned store since the early 1990s.
“It just screams family,” Mailloux told The Tribune.
She recalled memories of her first son sitting in a green grocery cart as she browsed for groceries, and experiencing an intense craving for yogurt from the co-op after she delivered her second boy.
About 12 hours after giving birth, she was back at SLO Food Co-op, describing it as her home away from home, she said.
“I just remember the peace of being there ... and not have to be in the overwhelm of a huge grocery store, and just go into my little place and get my yogurt,” she remembered, as she brushed away tears from her cheeks.
Now decades later, Mailloux has been tapped as the person to lead the co-op during a period of transition.
By the end of 2027, the co-op hopes to double memberships, triple sales and move into a space twice the size of its current location.
In order for the co-op to have a larger presence in the community, Mailloux said, it must move from its cherished spot on Victoria Avenue.
Community will remain the co-op’s top priority, Mailloux and other co-op staff members said.
“When I think about the Food Co-op ... I think about society coming together around food and fire. That’s where community came from,” Sheppard said. “I like to think of the Food Co-op as that hearth or that central gathering place that everybody can come to, where the values of the community are reflected.”
How to visit SLO Food Co-op
The co-op is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily at 2494 Victoria Ave. in San Luis Obispo.
