After 70 Years, Birmingham Neighborhood Gets Its Grocery Store Back

A Birmingham, Alabama, neighborhood went nearly 70 years without a grocery store. That ended Nov. 7, when Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative opened We All Eat Market inside Heart of the Farm, its new market and community kitchen in the historic Fountain Heights neighborhood.

The Black-owned urban farm cooperative has grown from a single garden into 16 farm plots. Much of what the market sells grows just down the street.

"For almost 70 years, families in Fountain Heights have had to leave their own neighborhood just to buy groceries, and every dollar they spent left with them," said M. Dominique Villanueva, co-founder of Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative. "The We All Eat Market changes that. Our communities don't have to wait for someone else to decide what we eat or where we can buy it. We can grow it, sell it and own it, and this market is proof of that."

How the co-op expands food access

The cooperative's We All Eat community supported agriculture program was the first in Alabama to accept EBT and participate in Double Up Food Bucks. That program lets SNAP participants buy twice as many fresh fruits and vegetables with the same dollars.

Heart of the Farm was designed to serve more than 3,000 residents in an area with limited access to fresh, affordable food. The opening arrives at a moment when rising grocery prices and SNAP interruptions have made food access less certain for households across the country.

What city support made possible

In 2025, the Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a $150,000 agreement with the cooperative to support the project. The cooperative is hiring neighbors to run the store, and the facility's community kitchen offers local food entrepreneurs affordable commercial kitchen space.

"Access to fresh, healthy food shouldn't depend on your ZIP code," said Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin. "We All Eat Market is more than a new grocery store; it's an investment in Fountain Heights residents, neighborhood revitalization and the kind of community we want to build."

Villanueva and Christopher Gooden founded Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative in 2016. Beyond the market, the organization operates the We All Eat Delivery program and the Freedom Harvest Apprenticeship.

The project's model pairs hyperlocal production with hiring from the surrounding blocks, and its EBT-first payment approach gives retailers and municipalities a working template for addressing food access gaps that large chains have left unfilled.