After 70 years without a grocery store, Birmingham’s Fountain Heights neighbors build their own
By Ayron Lewallen
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (WVTM) — The shelves are nearly stocked Friday at the We All Eat Market, and Darlene Battle is ready to shop. For Battle, who has lived in Birmingham’s Fountain Heights neighborhood her entire life, the market opening Saturday means a place to buy groceries closer to home and a chance to see an idea she watched grow become reality.
“This is a market that is birthed in the neighborhood,” said Battle, vice president of the Fountain Heights Neighborhood Association.
The market’s owners said Fountain Heights has gone about 70 years without a grocery store. Now, they hope We All Eat will make fresh food easier to find and give neighbors a place to connect.
“We deserve the best, and we’re not going to wait for anyone else to give it to us,” co-owner Dominique Villanueva said. “We’re going to build it ourselves.”
From a garden to a grocery store
Villanueva and co-owner Chris Gooden live in Fountain Heights. They said the idea for the market grew from their own experience and conversations with neighbors who shared the same need. Villanueva said after the COVID-19 pandemic began, a bus line serving the neighborhood was cut. For people who relied on it to reach a grocery store, the trip became even harder.
The couple had already begun growing food in the neighborhood. Villanueva said they started farming on a nearby lot in 2017 after outgrowing their front and backyard gardens. Planning and fundraising for the market began around 2021.
Battle remembers the early days. She said the owners shared produce with neighbors through a free market, and sometimes she would come home to find a bag of produce on her steps.
“They didn’t just start with the market,” Battle said. “They started with reaching out to neighbors and being neighborly.”
Gooden said We All Eat plans to offer produce grown on neighborhood lots and by cooperative farmers, along with other locally grown or organic products. Shoppers can also expect bulk herbs and spices. The market has a demonstration kitchen, where Gooden hopes to offer classes and help customers learn how to use ingredients they may not have tried before.
For Battle, convenience matters. She said the grocery store she currently uses is at least a 10-minute drive away. Before that store opened, the trip was longer.
“We were excited once we got that store because before then it was at least 15 or 20 minutes,” she said. “This is actually a convenient market with healthy options.”
Villanueva described We All Eat as a $1 million project supported by community members and outside funders. Gooden said the first $30,000 came from grassroots donations, including small contributions from people who stopped by and learned what they were trying to build. Another $150,000 of support came from the city of Birmingham.
The grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The owners said the celebration will include shopping, children’s activities, herbal tea blending and door prizes.
The store’s normal business hours will be Tuesdays through Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. The market will be open Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and is closed on Mondays. The store is located at 1201 16th Street North in Birmingham.
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