It was no secret to City Councilor Jack Henderson or his district one constituents that Antonio Perez was struggling to keep Gateway Market open.
“Six months ago his shelves were almost empty and, you know, he was having a time," Henderson said. "And he says, ‘Well, I’m going to go ahead and restock everything. We’re going to start new. We’re going to cut back on some staff.
"'We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. We’re going to institute some other procedures to get a handle on things walking away.’ And, you know — he did all that.”
But it wasn’t enough.
“I just don’t think the people 100 percent bought into the fact that they needed to support the store," Henderson said. "And when you don’t get the full support, then you can’t make the money.”
Perez recently announced Gateway Market will close by the end of July, and community leaders are worried.
“The community already has a 14 year less life expectancy than other parts of Tulsa because of that inability to access fresh fruits and vegetables that we need for our health to maintain our weight and our diabetes and our heart disease," said Katie Plohocky, chair of the Tulsa Food Security Council. "When you rely on fast food and convenience stores, which is higher priced, not only does it cost them more to eat, they’re eating much, much less healthier.”
Plohocky said one of Gateway’s biggest problems was it was too big.
“For the north side store, I think to be sustainable the store size needs to be smaller to just be able to cover the expenses and the cost of running the store and to be able to make a profit to keep it going and pay your employees,” Plohocky said.
She says shrinking a north Tulsa grocery store from 60,000 square feet to 30,000 or even 20,000 would make it cheaper to operate without leaving residents with fewer choices.
“We’ve been doing a lot of research, and it seems that just from an expense standpoint that the smaller stores are more sustainable," Plohocky said. "You can get just as much produce in them without having to carry that extra overhead and waste and trying to get your turnover.”
The challenge is figuring out who will run future stores, big or small. Henderson said a lot of that will be up to residents.
“Who are they going to believe? Who are they going to trust?" Henderson said. "Are they going to trust somebody that looks like them?
"Or are they going to trust somebody that just has a big enough name that they know that store can compete, the prices are going to be right? You know, there’s all kinds of factors.
Plohocky believes local is the way to go.
“I am a huge proponent of community-owned stores, and we’re trying to do that with the Tulsa Fresh Food Financing fund," Plohocky said. "In our mobile store, we’re collecting sales data from all of our different commercial stops in north Tulsa to figure out which locations could be sustainable and then find someone from the community and help mentor them and give them technical assistance and help them with their business plan and get them financing so they can actually open their own and create, you know, bring wealth back to the community with locally owned businesses.”
Henderson said that model has worked before.
“We’ve had stores that were community type stores," Henderson said. "That was when I was a little boy. And, you know, they never had problems — never had any problem with people spending money with them.”
One thing is certain. With just 30 days at most before Gateway Market closes its doors, there isn’t much time before north Tulsans will be short on options.
