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A large, eager crowd waited in the heat as the Wild Onion Market grocery store cooperative opened its doors Wednesday in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood at 7007 N. Clark St.
It was a vision almost 12 years in the making.
Rogers Park is home to a Jewel-Osco and several independent grocery stores, such as Devon Market and Morse Fresh Market, but until Wednesday’s grand opening the community never had a co-op. A co-op is an organization owned by its members.
The store also provides another option for south (and other) Evanston residents, who account for a significant portion of Wild Onion’s more than 2,800 owners.
Wild Onion set a goal of getting at least 25% of its products from local suppliers within a 200-mile radius. That includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Owner Kristin Alexander said that many of the products come from the National Co-Op Grocers supplier.
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Metropolis Coffee company, which is based in the nearby Edgewater neighborhood, operates the coffee shop, and there are benches and small tables in the southwest corner of the building, just beyond the cash registers, where shoppers can relax and hang out.
Once the ribbon was cut and people rushed in, it wasn’t long before the checkout line came to a standstill. The shoppers, most of whom were owners, told the RoundTable they were pleased with what they had seen.
12-year journey
Wild Onion traces its roots to a December 2012 meeting organized by mother and daughter duo Mary Meyer and Jocelyn Gerard. As reported at the time, Meyer and Gerard wanted to start a co-op because of their love for healthy eating and because only one co-op existed in the Chicago area at the time. The meeting eventually led to the creation of what was originally known as the Rogers Park Food Co-Op In 2020, they set their sights on the grocery store building that took up most of the square footage in a small shopping plaza at the northeast corner of Clark Street and Lunt Avenue. The building had several tenants over the decades. Express Market Place opened in 2018 but didn’t survive the pandemic; 2020 also saw the organization adopt its current name – a reference to the origins of Chicago’s name.
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As previously reported by the RoundTable, Wild Onion was able to raise $2.4 million through members buying shares, as well as donations and grants. Around $350,000 came from city and state grants, including an Equitable Transit Oriented Development grant from the City of Chicago. This grant seeks to provide funding for projects that sit along or near transit routes.
The store is located a little over a block east of the Union Pacific North Metra Line’s Rogers Park station. The commuter line provides a fairly quick connection with all three Evanston Metra stations. CTA routes 22/Clark and 96/Lunt both have stops near the plaza.
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Wild Onion offers fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as plenty of meat and fish products and healthy food brands that aren’t stocked in most grocery stores. While it doesn’t have the wide variety of international food one can find in Devon Market and, to a lesser extent, Morse Market, shoppers can buy items such as frozen dinners from across the Indian subcontinent, Mexican soups and locally baked empanadas.
Grand opening
Even though the grand opening was at noon on a weekday, the crowd was large enough to fill about a third of the shopping plaza’s parking lot. Many attendees were owners, but one owner in particular got the most attention.
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Meyer described the first 200 co-op owners as “visionaries,” without whom the market wouldn’t have been possible.
“It warms my heart to see so many of you today, because the story of a co-op is a story of the community coming together,” she said.
Meyer said that, while she intends to leave the board at the end of 2024, she couldn’t imagine giving up the ownership stake.
“It is so embedded in me that I could never walk away,” she said.
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Jillian Jason, who until recently served as Wild Onion’s board president and remains a co-op owner, reflected that she underestimated how hard it would be to launch a cooperative grocery store and keep all the pieces moving. But she was grateful to see it open, describing the store as an “economic engine of our neighborhood,” “a safe gathering place” and “a place of sustenance and support.”
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Teresa Mesa, the market’s general manager, lavished praise on the employees, several of whom stood behind her.
“I want to thank the staff so much,” she said. “They worked so hard. I’m so amazed at the incredible team we have.”
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th Ward), whose ward includes most of Rogers Park and whom Alexander credited with helping Wild Onion overcome many procedural hurdles and obtain funding, was attending the Chicago City Council meeting at the time of the opening, but Deputy 49th Ward director Kyle Ryan spoke on her behalf, saying that he was pleased with the crowd.
“Much like an onion, our neighborhood is made up of many layers, and it’s great to see so many of them [here],” he said.
The RoundTable chatted with Karen Davis, one of the Evanston co-op owners, as she waited in line.
“So far, [it looks] great,” she said. “I’m looking forward to getting more local fruit. I’m hoping I’ll never have to shop at Whole Foods again.”
Editor’s note: The reporter’s mother is a Wild Onion Market owner and donor.
Wild Onion Market opens in Rogers Park is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.