Gimmie Something to Eat

It wasn't long before the Willy Street Co-op outgrew this space and in October of 1977, it relocated to 1202 Williamson Street (currently the Social Justice Center). This space had 1600 square feet of retail space and an additional 2500 square feet of office and storage space. It was also cleaner, more organized and much easier to navigate when shopping and the product line was greatly expanded to include more bulk items, health and beauty aids, processed foods, convenience foods, ethnic items and frozen meat and fish. The sales doubled almost immediately and the staff was increased to manage the much higher volume. Within five years, the membership increased from 1300 to 4000 members.

During this period of growth, the Willy Street Co-op began experiencing problems related to its staff and governance structures. At the time there was no functioning board of directors and the governance issues were being dealt with at monthly membership meetings. In order to streamline this cumbersome system, a board of directors was elected and began holding monthly meetings in March 1979. The original collective staff structure was also problematic since all employees shared the decision-making authority and responsibility in all matters and decisions were made by consensus. Staff tensions grew and began to have an effect on the profitability of the store. After its first two years of financial losses, the staff was restructured and the first General Manager was hired fall of 1982.

Fruit Items, video food critique, video food review, willy street coop