We are currently hiring for a full-time co-owner.

Please stop by the store or print and drop off an application.

We are a 100% worker-owned business which operates via consensus, and when we do have positions open, we look for experienced applicants with skills in any or all of the following areas:

• grocery retail
• customer service
• organic foods
• consensus-based decision-making
• galitarian workplaces.

Ideal applicants are looking for the chance to be involved in a thriving, socially responsible neighborhood business. We offer excellent benefits!

Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative opened in 1974 as a small neighborhood store run by community members dedicated to providing an alternative to corporate grocery stores. We are now a collectively run, worker-owned and managed vegetarian grocery cooperative. Throughout our forty-year history, we have remained committed to organics, healthy food, sustainability, worker-ownership, and true community involvement.

As members of a cooperative, we are not just workers and partners, but are committed to mutual support of one another and other cooperatives, to quality natural foods, and to providing excellent service to the community. Members ideally have experience and interest in the following areas:

• Organic Foods, Supplements, and Health
• Groups that operate cooperatively by consensus
• Work that is often physically demanding

Important Information:

Applications are available in person at Other Avenues, 3930 Judah Street @44th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122. You are are also welcome to download and print an application here, although we ask that you submit it in person during open hours (8am to 9pm every day). Please attach a resume to your application.

Please do not telephone or e-mail to ask about the status of your application– when positions become available, the hiring committee carefully reviews applications and contacts interested applicants directly. Thank you!

By Emily Huston, aka Bulk Mistress of Ye Olde Co-op

To reduce your plastic footprint, start with your shopping basket. Shop in bulk and bring your own containers from home. Mother Earth will thank you, as will our turtle pals in the Pacific just a few blocks west.

At Other Avenues, “Healthy Planet” is key to our mission and we strive to avoid as much unnecessary packaging on our shelves—and on the planet—as possible. We offer organic produce, grains, beans, dairy, eggs, bread, snacks, coffee, tea, body care: all the good stuff, and all available with little to no superfluous plastic.

Look for me in Aisle 5, the Bulk alley, shoveling organic oats into a hefty Ziploc the width and height of a baby. Even if you don’t consume oats with as much fervor as I, you too can discover a love for bulk foods and the ease of a plastic-free lifestyle.

Read on for a quick guide to shopping with less plastic at OA.

Bulk Basics

It all starts with a bag… or two or three.

Next time you visit, be sure to bring:

• plenty of bags: cotton, hemp, or upcycled plastic (e.g. old pita bags or ziplocs)

• lidded containers: jars, tupperware, yogurt containers, or deli containers for bulk liquids

• a sense of adventure and patience for learning something new!

There’s no need to necessarily buy new for any of the above. Imagine the word recycle in a literal sense and you get the idea. Food jars can be washed and reused, old plastic bags ditto, and olive oil can be topped up in its depleted container.

Once you have your stash, think about what you normally buy and if it can be replaced with a low-plastic or bulk alternative. The idea here is not about perfection, but doing what you can, when you can! We have jars, bags, and compostable plastic containers for sale if you forget yours.

How to Shop with your own Containers

First, weigh your container/bag on the scale provided—in bulk speak, tare it– so that we can deduct that weight from the cost of purchase. Record the tare weight on a sticker, a notepad, or your phone. If you need help, ask us for assistance.

Whatever you choose, fill up your container and record the 4-digit number noted on the bin. Some folks use their phone to snap a photo, while others out-smart the phone and memorize. I prefer to use scrap paper, but there are stickers and ties available as well.

Let myself, or another friendly cashier, do the rest! For every bulk jar or container brought from home, we’ll knock off 5 cents for your efforts. Save the planet, save some cash.

What to Buy

Without dipping to much into hyperbole, our Bulk section is one of the finest resources for plastic-free living in San Francisco.

Beans, flours, chocolates, dried fruits, seeds, nuts, tortilla chips, coconut flakes, and more are available for your pleasure. Might I add: nut butters, olive oil, and a slew of other cooking liquids.

Of course our Produce, Bread, Chill, and Bodycare sections are also amenable to plastic-free living.

Normally buy peanut butter in a jar? Take your own and fill ‘er up with the bulk stuff. Love sandwich bread in a plastic bag? Indulge in the exquisite fresh baked loaves from Marla Bakery, Rosalind Bakery, or Semifreddi’s- all baked fresh and sold in a paper bag. Buy milk in a Straus glass container and return it next time for a $2.00 refund.

It’s all about those easy changes that form the foundation of the plastic-free revolution.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Start where you are, and have fun doing it.

See you at the bulk bins!

Dear Customers,

We have severed our ties to Four Barrel effective 01.05.2018. Please refer to this article for more information. We do not support victim-blaming and have zero tolerance for sexual harassment in the workplace. Below is the note we sent to Four Barrel explaining our decision to discontinue their coffee:

To Whom It May Concern,

We are discontinuing our relationship with Four Barrel immediately and all remaining retail bags have been put on a blow-out sale. While I appreciate your attempts to clarify the scandal with your recent letters, it would seem that you are scapegoating one errant co-owner’s behavior and dismissing many very valid claims that Four Barrel fostered a toxic and harassive system-wide culture. You should know that sexual harassment at Four Barrel has been an open secret for years, and that I personally feel complicit in that I had heard third hand information about the sexual assault that occurred in Bolinas (and in your actual workplace), and yet I continued to carry your product. That’s something that I, as a co-owner of an ethical business, have to wrestle with. I find it hard to believe that no one at the company had any inkling of these problems prior to a few months ago, when your HR department played an active role in disempowering women who came forward.

Your new owners are more than welcome to reach out at such time as they become fully worker-owned -and- they carry organic, fair-trade, or otherwise ethical third-party certified ethical product. Thanks very much.

–Tulasi Johnson, Worker-Owner, Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative

By Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

Wayne Landers, our beloved coworker and co-owner, passed away on November 12^th, 2017 after battling cancer for over a year. Other Avenues workers and the co-op community will greatly miss him. We want to express our gratitude for his valued contribution to the coop movement in general (and Other Avenues specifically) in many of our business and community related endeavors.

I worked with Wayne Landers at Other Avenues for over 14 years where we shared many business-related projects and attended co-op conferences to help build the coop network. During these years, I appreciated Wayne’s tireless energy, generosity, humor, and cooperative spirit. He was a born co-operator.

Wayne Landers was born on July 23, 1966 in Fremont and was the youngest child of John and Joanne Landers. He is survived by his three siblings, Paula, Fred and Russell Landers. Wayne exceled academically in high school and later graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1989 with a double major in Physics and History. After graduation, Wayne worked as IT manager for several years and was self -employed as a software developer and consultant in Silicon Valley. This ability to communicate with computers came in handy when he took a job at Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco in the 90s when, at the time, none of us were computer literate. In fact, we used to call Wayne “the brother from another planet” – he could talk to computers and they would listen to him!

I remember asking Wayne about the reasons for his move from a more financially rewarding career to a retail health food cooperative. He explained that, first of all, he was searching for a workplace that would be democratic and supportive–like the close-knit family in which he was raised. Secondly, he was not happy in the extremely competitive environment of Silicon Valley. Besides being a highly intellectual individual, Wayne was on a spiritual quest for mutually empowering, satisfactory work, and his career in tech simply did not provide that.

In addition to helping us with computer education, Wayne also improved many communication tools to advance co-op’s governance. While he was CFO of our co-op, Wayne explained the value of business planning, which later became useful as we pursued community loans to purchase Other Avenues’ building in 2008, and later when he engineered a much-needed refinancing that has ensured Other Avenues’ enduring presence in the Outer Sunset community.   While working full time at OA, Wayne attended graduate school and got an MBA in business from Dominican University in 2010. He applied these business skills when he helped OA obtain a business loan from our bank. I vividly recall the time when some of us went with Wayne to the Title Company to sign loads of papers. The company was in a tall building downtown, and while the rest of us were admiring the great view from the top floor, Wayne was scrutinizing minor, yet extremely important details in the million pages we had to sign!

In addition to focusing on business related topics, Wayne was deeply involved in improving the human side of our coop. We are a small worker-own co-op where all of us are required to do everything, including cashiering, managing departments, and facilitating Board meetings. Wayne often facilitated our Board meetings with such great care that he became my mentor in this field. Wayne would listen to every side of an issue carefully—especially when the subject was polarized— digest the information, and paraphrase to summarize everyone’s concerns. He was able to do this not only because of his excellent command of communication tools, but also because of his ability to understand and empathize with every side of the coin.

Lastly, Wayne was the most positive person I have met in many years of my co-op work. Whether facing a difficult business decision or while fighting his year-long cancer battle, Wayne never gave up. My husband Rick and I would go to visit Wayne once a month while he was on a sick leave from the co-op. He would show us around the Fremont area and partake in various hikes, despite his flagging physical ability. Wayne and his family shared many backpacking and camping trips as they adventured all over California and the West Coast. He even inspired his family to plan a trip to Yosemite to celebrate his last birthday this July. They were a bit ambivalent and concerned, especially about Wayne’s plans to climb Unicorn Peak which they had done 5 years previous. The hike was not easy, but Wayne accomplished it with his brothers. Although exhausted, Wayne was so pleased to see the place again (see the photo of Wayne with the Peak in the background in Wayne’s Life Celebration Event).

While questioning many inconsistencies in life and in business, Wayne never lost positivity and hope. He always tried to keep a balance between hoping for a better future while facing and living the present moment. Throughout his life, Wayne worked hard on long-term projects for community based economy, at Other Avenues as well as in his local Fremont community. As his brother Russell said, “All the while he seemed to have the ability to just be – here – now-together- with you and me- gently – exchanging ideas -laughing – creating – with love and respect!”

It is with much sadness that we impart Other Avenues has lost one of our long standing co-owners, Wayne Landers.  Wayne was very passionate about Other Avenues and the coop movement.  He was instrumental in many aspects of the business, including helping us buy our building.

Wayne was always positive in his long battle.  We will miss his humor, enthusiasm, intelligence and kindness. Our hearts and love go out to his spirit, his family, and everyone he has touched during his life.  He will be greatly missed.

Won’t you take a moment to fill out this online survey? We would love to hear from you, our customers, and learn more about your shopping habits and  desires.  We will collect your responses until September 30th, and we look forward to the results!

Check out this riveting video from Democracy Now, as well as this NY Times article, about how newly weakened EPA regulations may be leading to increased illness among migrant farm workers. Buying organic is not only a decision that many people make over concerns about ingesting pesticide residue, it also has large scale environmental and workers’ rights ramifications that go beyond our personal plates. This is why Other Avenues has led the way in Organics by having a 100% organic produce section for nearly 15 years!

Back in 2014, Aqua Surf Shop was forced out from their location of 14 years on Sloat Boulevard across from the SF Zoo due to real estate development. Aqua Shop reopened in 2015 at 3847 Judah, near the corner of 44^th Avenue. With a small but dedicated staff, they quickly renovated the space, put a mural on the wall, and officially opened for business and stocked up the space. Aqua shop intends to get the best gear suited for their customers – whether or not they make the sale.
Devin Dargell, the current owner, says that their customer base and sales remain about the same as when they were on Sloat, but that he likes the new location better because Judah has a more of a sense of community and regular foot traffic created by Judalicious, Other Avenues and  Outerlands.  Aqua is not just a surf shop, but also carries skate supplies as well as many gifty items that are affordable and locally made, such as t shirts, comfortable beach pants and even unique socks. In addition to serving the community with unique gifts and activity gear, Aqua hopes to sponsor more community events and workshops.
While business is growing slowly but surely, Aqua experiences the same small business blues familiar to all businesses in San Francisco where the real estate keeps creeping up and the standard of living cannot support the staff, hence having to recruit, hire and train new staff members. As for himself, Devin plans to stay here where he is raising his family and hopes to make this small business profitable and sustainable.

Visit our neighbors Aqua Surf Shop online, or better yet, pay them a visit after your next grocery run to Other Avenues!

We close our store only two days out of every year: to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and to celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1st!

Learn more about the history of International Worker’s Day here. We look forward to seeing you when we re-open at 8 am on Tuesday, 5/02.

California is experiencing the worst ever drought for the Bay Area in recorded history. This could be a glimpse into a drier future. Homes and farms are competing for water across nearly all of California.

California aside, the West Coast has lost nearly 63 trillion gallons of surface and near-surface water, in a Sept 26 2014 Science article.

For a stark view of what we’re dealing with, take a look at a stark graph of California’s reservoir levels.

The severe drought is increasing dairy farmers’ costs – especially organic dairy costs. To qualify as “organic milk” under USDA regulations, the cows must (1) eat organically produced feed and (2) graze their animals on organic grass pasture at least 120 days out of the year.

The problem is that grass pastures are drying up and the cost of organic feed is rising sky-high, leaving some organic cattle & dairy farmers, well – dry.

Historically, the USDA has lowered the minimum number of days on pasture and has cut the amount of organic feed.  The USDA has received a request to do this once again.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, “Overall food prices this year will rise 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent, up from 1.4 percent in 2013, with the California drought potentially having “large and lasting effects” on produce, dairy and eggs…”

We’re mindful of rising food costs, especially in those areas where food is already costly (such as dairy). However, with history’s worst ever drought in California (since record-keeping began), and with no relief in sight, the rising costs of food are out of our control.

We’ll continue to keep you posted with updated media & other links. (See below.)

Links of Interest

Gov. Jerry Brown Issues Executive Order to Redouble State Drought Actions

Current Conditions – California Drought – The Pacific Institute

With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate – NYT

California Drought – San Jose Mercury News

California Officially Enters 4th Year of Drought with Worst Water Situation in History – KCBS

NASA Photos Show California’s Drought Like Never Before – Weather Channel