West Oakland's only full-scale grocery store is closing

OAKLAND, Calif. - West Oakland's only full-scale grocery store is closing.

The last day for shopping at Community Foods Market on San Pablo Avenue is Sunday. 

Until then, everything in the store will be sold at 50 percent off.

Community Foods CEO Brahm Ahmadi told the San Francisco Chronicle that the economic pressures of the pandemic is too much to overcome, including labor shortages and supply chain issues.

MORE: 600 families in Oakland now receive $500 a month in guaranteed income

"People were hopeful this would have symbolic meaning as well as real impact as far as catalyzing improvements and changes in the neighborhood," he told the newspaper. "Obviously this not sustaining will have some impact on the community’s efforts to do that and it will probably make it harder for subsequent projects that want to do something — not just in this neighborhood but in similar neighborhoods across the country."

This is not the first time Community Foods was poised to close. 

About a year ago, the market launched a "Save Our Store" campaign hoping to attract more customers.

"We know the negative impacts of this pandemic have not been distributed equally and are disproportionately hitting neighborhoods like West Oakland," he told the Chronicle.

Ahmadi added that people from other parts of the East Bay who didn't live in the neighborhood shopped at Community Foods before the pandemic because they wanted to support the mission. However, he said, that outside foot traffic stopped during 2020.