Meiser’s Fresh Grocery and Deli

Most neighborhoods don’t have to form committees and hold meetings and put in volunteer hours just to get a place to buy food. Lower Price Hill did. Not just a few meetings and hours: It took several years of effort from residents to get a replacement for the only grocery store in the neighborhood after it closed in 2017. Without it, the area was left with no place to buy basic necessities. In a somewhat geographically isolated, low-income neighborhood where 70% of residents don’t own cars, that made daily life much harder for a lot of people. And, in the neighborhood with the lowest life expectancy among all Cincinnati neighborhoods, it was literally health-threatening.

Residents worked with the City and with non-profits to open Meiser’s Fresh Grocery and Deli in 2021. Half social enterprise business, half non-profit, its central goal is to give people in the neighborhood access to food regardless of income. Without it, many residents would have to take a bus up Warsaw Avenue to get groceries and lug them home. It’s also becoming a hub of neighborhood connection, employment development for neighborhood residents and better health.

It’s named for the family that ran the store since the 40’s, on State Street since 1960. By 2017 the building was about worn out. Price Hill Will, the non-profit community development corporation, had offered money to rehab it, but owner Carl Meiser didn’t want to live through an extensive rehab and start over, so he retired and sold the building to Price Hill Will.

A few women got together as a Community Action Team and began identifying what they wanted: an actual grocery store with a full range of products. But even with a break on the rent, no one came forward to operate what has always been a low profit-margin business in a low income neighborhood.

The only serious interest was from convenience stores. The people who’d worked so hard had never wanted a place that emphasized beer, lottery tickets and snacks, but it looked like the only alternative.

At a meeting of a local non-profit, Marisha Davis, one of those community activists, expressed her disappointment: That people would get sick, or become sicker. That all the effort of community organizing without result was sapping community spirit. And, she said, though the neighborhood had expressed its desire to spend money on fresh produce, they apparently didn’t have enough. It was like being told their money wasn’t good enough, or that people didn’t believe SNAP recipients cared about eating healthy.

Hearing her speak, Reba Hennessey, who was on the board of Community Matters, another Lower Price Hill non-profit, started thinking about bringing her non-profit experience to the situation. Your Store of the Queen City was established, the non-profit that runs Meiser’s, with Hennessey as executive director. During the pandemic and ensuing delays, they did free food giveaways outdoors, then re-opened the store in November of 2021.

The store, open to all ZIP codes, offers a combination of market-priced food and necessities, free produce and rescued food from their partners Last Mile, Produce Perks, La Soupe, the Free Store and Black Power Initiative. Some people pick up a Power Pack of basic non-perishables from the Food Bank, others can pick out a combination of free canned goods and fresh produce once a day. Or they can use SNAP benefits to buy food at retail prices. There are dinners for the neighborhood and sandwiches for sale, and some to give unhoused neighbors. Everyone who works there is local, paid a living wage and has opportunities for career development.

Meiser’s is different than a food pantry: it’s open 80 hours a week, 6 days a week. Like any grocery store, it’s a place to run into friends and neighbors, and here, the employees know just about everyone’s name. But it’s also creating more intentional ways of uniting a neighborhood made up of three groups: the urban Appalachians who were the majority here since the 70’s, African Americans and Hispanic immigrants. There’s a cooking club to share recipes and learn how to use produce. Now there’s a well-being club that’s based on sharing cultural perspectives and getting important health information. On Thursdays, there’s a market in the public room next to the market, called Outer Space, which is full of activity in the afternoon when Oyler School gets out, with a fresh produce giveaway including foods like asparagus, plantains and jalapeno peppers, a chance for local makers to sell goods, or Girl Scouts to sell cookies.

Hennessey is the official executive director, but she sees that what’s strong about the store comes from the neighborhood, for the neighborhood. They made it all happen.

Reba Hennessey, the executive director of Your Store of the Queen City, is a member of the Great Cincinnati Food Policy Council, on the Access and Education Committee. She’s interested in coming together with others on food policy that affects food rescue and food waste, about the city’s support of small and neighborhood food businesses, and about the level of food access benefits, particularly SNAP.

Go Back To Food Policy Council Webpage