Another progressive myth "the food oasis" bites the dust.

Maywood Market exemplifies grocery stores' struggles in 'food deserts'

Owner worries about its survival, vows not to give up

By Serena Maria Daniels, Tribune reporter

September 5, 2011

Maywood Market opened with great fanfare, billed as an oasis amid a "food desert" in this west suburb, where fresh fruits and vegetables were hard to find.

Despite the hopes of community leaders and health advocates, one item remains in short supply more than a year later — shoppers pushing carts brimming with food.

On a recent day, the well-stocked aisles were virtually empty, the only sound was the soft hum of the refrigeration system. And there have been plenty of similar days, said co-owner Bob Haralambopoulos, who worries about the store's survival.

"We've tried a lot of things — advertising, sales — but we haven't reached our goal yet," he said, sitting in the grocery's shuttered restaurant, which once served hot, ready-made meals such as broasted chicken and fish.

Business at the supermarket — it's the first full-service grocery of its size to serve Maywood residents in more than 15 years — has been slow and shows no promise of picking up, he said.

The owners' experience underscores the promise and the problems that can arise when such stores open in so-called food deserts — often low-income communities where residents have trouble finding fresh foods. Their success or failure often hinges on a sobering array of intangibles that include income levels, eating habits and the proximity of fast-food restaurants, experts say.

Maywood Mayor Henderson Yarbrough is among the dozens of supporters who have regularly shopped at the grocery since it opened in April last year.

The market, Yarbrough said, is experiencing the same hardships that many startups have to contend with during their first year or two in business. Success depends on how long the owners are willing to struggle to stay afloat, Yarbrough said.

"It worries me (that the grocery) cannot stay in business under the current circumstances," he said.

With about 75 percent of its population African-American and 20 percent Latino, Maywood is a microcosm for the food desert problem playing out in urban areas across the country. The local market is struggling to find customers even as first lady Michelle Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, among others, have tried to draw attention to the issue.

All the news is not bad. A study earlier this summer by the Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group found that the number of Chicagoans living in food deserts has declined by 39 percent during the past five years.

Some residents, especially in parts of the South Austin community, the South Loop and Morgan Park, are living in "food oases," where more healthful food options are plentiful, the study concluded.

The Gallagher report came out in June, shortly after Emanuel pledged to fast-track the permit and licensing procedures to encourage development of more grocery stores in the city.

But another study released this summer took issue with the notion that simply providing access to healthful foods would lead to better eating habits.

Like fast-food restaurants, grocery stores can be loaded with unhealthy, fattening choices while more nutritious foods tend to be more expensive, according to the study published in July in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study followed more than 5,000 people of different races in several U.S. cities, including Chicago, from 1985 to 2001.

Researchers assessed diets while also tracking how far the participants lived from supermarkets and fast-food restaurants.

The study found that easy access to supermarkets wasn't linked to greater consumption of healthful foods such as produce, low-fat foods or lean meats and whole grains.

In Chicago, nearly 400,000 people live in communities where they have to travel outside their neighborhoods to buy fresh groceries, experts say.

There was clearly a need for a well-stocked grocery in Maywood. When Haralambopoulos began surveying customers about five years ago at his former business, a dry-cleaning service, a grocery was at the top of most residents' wish lists, he said.

"People had been talking about it for years," he said.

Haralambopoulos hoped that he would be able to clear $200,000 a month. The return, he said, has been far less.

The problem partly stems from the struggling economy and the long-held ritual of many residents to travel to nearby suburbs to satisfy their grocery needs, he said.

It's not so much the lack of customers that's the problem now, but how much they spend, he said.

"We have a lot of customers, but they spend very little money," he said, adding that the average customer pays about $12 at the checkout counter.

Anita Cocroft, 48, and her friend Deatrice Hightower, 50, both of Maywood, walked out of the store Wednesday with three plastic bags of groceries that included ice cream, a 2-liter bottle of pop, a loaf of bread and bacon.

"It's good for little whatnots," Cocroft said. "We're glad it's here, but we don't really go grocery shopping here, you know, like fill-a-grocery-cart shopping."

For that, the friends, who work together at a bakery, go to the Food 4 Less supermarket in Melrose Park.

"If they put a Food 4 Less in here, business would be booming," Hightower said.

The Maywood Market doesn't have as extensive a selection as the bigger supermarket and is more expensive, the friends agreed.

Eating fresh food is a crucial element in combating obesity, health experts say. It also can help prevent premature deaths from chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes — ailments particularly prevalent among African-Americans and Latinos.

Researchers at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine found that more than half of adults ages 25 to 45 in the Maywood area are obese, according to preliminary findings.

The researchers also determined that processed food, fast food and entrees that consisted mostly of red meat were a big part of the diets of their Maywood subjects.

Julie Yonek, a researcher at the Center for Healthcare Equity Institute for Healthcare Studies at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine recently co-authored a study that took inventory of assets that promote health in 77 Chicago neighborhoods.

Yonek said that concerns about personal safety can be a barrier to buying healthful foods.

"It wasn't always an issue that the resources (such as grocery stores) weren't available," she said. "People didn't always feel safe getting to these places."

Haralambopoulos' property is well-maintained. The parking lot is trash-free, and there were no panhandlers in sight during a recent visit. Maywood police officers are paid to patrol the property. Shoppers say the store's aisles are always clean.

Haralambopoulos remains hopeful about the market's future. He said he keeps a close watch on how much inventory to order, takes customer requests and is considering how to reopen the vacant restaurant.

"I don't know what's going to happen next month or the month after that, but I'm not going to give up," he said. "I'm going to fight."