By Brendon Smith
Willy Street Co-op
As you have probably heard, Willy Street Co-op‒North will be opening later this summer. The store will be where Pierce’s Northside Market had operated for the last 10 years. We have gotten a lot of support and feedback, and we appreciate all of it; it’s helped us to improve our plans for Willy North. That’s what the cooperative model is all about, after all: working together to help provide for the needs of the group.
By way of introducing ourselves to those who aren’t familiar with us, we’re a consumer cooperative. Co-ops are businesses created to meet the needs of the people who own them. We work together to meet a common goal we wouldn’t be able to meet ourselves. Willy Street Co-op was formed in 1974 by a small group of people who needed a local grocery store. Since then, about 33,000 other people have decided over the years to work together with us to provide even more groceries for the community.
We expect to open Willy North later this summer. Of course, we recognize that many Northsiders need access to groceries before then. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Northside Planning Council and the Kennedy Heights Community Center to help offer a shuttle service. Starting May 22, we also plan to start having a booth at the Sunday Northside Farmers Market, offering some staple grocery products until our store opens. And we will be setting up an information table at various summer events around the Northside (see details to the right), and we’ll sell a limited number of products at some of them.
Many requests for specific products have come in, and we’ll be asking you for more. In fact, when we open we’ll only be bringing in about 90% of the products we expect to eventually sell; the remaining 10% will be determined in large part by your requests. We will do our best to carry the products that you like and offer you some new ideas as well.
Because Willy North will be about twice the size of our other two stores, we’ll have enough room to put whole pallets of natural and organic products right onto the floor. Buying in that quantity will allow us to drop the price on those products. We expect to be able to pass along the savings to customers in our other stores as well.
Willy Street Co-op is governed by a nine-member Board of Directors and three seats are up for election. Any Co-op Owner can run for a seat and every Owner can vote for who they want to represent them. See http://www.willystreet.coop/board for the candidate application; turn in your paperwork by 9 pm on June 1.
If you have questions or suggestions, please let us know. Email thirdstore@willystreet.coop, call us at 251-6776, or send us a letter at Willy Street Co-op Business Office, 1457 E. Washington Ave., Madison WI 53704. We look forward to serving you at Willy North.