IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. - There's renewed hope that a fresh, locally-sourced co-op style grocery store could open in Imperial Beach in the coming months.'We're on the final stretch,' says Kim Rivero-Frink, the Board President of the Suncoast Market Co-op. 'We've got our store designed, we've been purchasing our equipment. Now we're fundraising.'Planning for the co-op has been going on since 2016.
In a sign of how close they are to opening, the Market hired it's first employee, General Manager Doug Zilm. He's got two decades of co-op experience in California, Mexico and Iowa. 'It means the board can take a big sigh of relief for all the work they've done and turn it over to operations,' Zilm says of his hire. 'But really it means we'll finally be able to serve the community in a fuller way than we have.