Kitsap Co-op to Expand in Bremerton

The fledgling local grocery, whose popup store within the Sweet & Smokey Diner has been hailed as a success by its board of directors, needs more room. It will go down the block into the space formerly occupied by Park Avenue Pets, whose abundant window panes look out on Fifth Street.

"Very conveniently, we're moving right next door," said Erin Falcone, the co-op's president. "There has never been a better time." 

The co-op announced the move at a block party and its annual member meeting Sunday afternoon, along with the news it will hire it first full-time employee: Julie Algiere, a familiar face at other Bremerton eateries, including the Honor Bar in Manette. 

The goal is to open the new location in mid-August, taking the co-op's total square-footage from about 200 to 400. A build-out to 1,300 square feet should be complete by November. Falcone said the store aims to supply just about every product found at a traditional store, even if it's just one brand. And all will be sourced within the co-op's mission to sell only local, sustainable products.

The owners of Park Avenue Pets were ready to retire, creating the opening for the co-op space. The co-op could expand to as much as 1,500 square feet within the building.

The Co-op, founded about 10 years ago, has amassed a membership of more than 800 people during that time. Members pay a $200 fee and that gives them part ownership in the organization, which could someday pay dividends. But one does not have to be a member to shop at the co-op. 

More recently, co-op leadership reached out to its membership and found about 650 "active" members who say they're ready to help bring to fruition the long-sought promise of a grocery store downtown. 

The co-op in 2016 teetered on the edge of failure, with just one member, Treasurer Kevin Koski, left on the board. Falcone and Kevin Gorman, now a Bremerton city councilman, came on board and new blood has continued to join since. 

The co-op's leadership realized the older model -- attain 1,000 members and raise millions of dollars to build out a 10,000-square-foot store -- was probably not going to happen. Instead, following the model of several other Washington state co-ops, they elected to try a piecemeal approach, including opening the pop-up store within the Sweet & Smokey Diner in November 2017. 

The pop-up has remained profitable, according to Matt Tilton, a local blacksmith who manages logistics for the co-op.

Some parts of Bremerton qualified a "food desert," defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as an area where people live more than a mile away from a grocery store, in 2015.

But what if the co-op successfully fills the entire space at the corner of Fifth Street and Park Avenue, and needs to go bigger? Its leaders want to be ready for that possibility.

Earlier this year, Chuck Henderson, property manager for Sher Partners, a Seattle developer, signaled to the Bremerton City Council that they're interested in a grocery store at the former Bremer-Wyckoff building at Pacific Avenue and Burwell Street. Sher Partners purchased that structure in April 2017 for $1 million. 

"We will bring healthy food into this food desert in downtown Bremerton for the first time," Falcone said. "We want to be the anchor store for this region and this is where we'll start."  

Correction: This story has been updated to include the projected date of opening. 

Josh Farley, Kitsap Sun Published July 15, 2018 | Updated July 16, 2018