Mary Meyer, the first Wild Onion co-op owner and vice president of the board of directors, right, celebrates with Dan Arnett, general manager of another co-op, Chicago Market, during the grand opening of Wild Onion Market in Rogers Park on June 12, 2024.
Grocery co-ops are collectively owned businesses, financed by the same people who shop at them. A wave of co-ops popped up in the U.S. in the 1960s as counterculture hubs that married ideas about collective labor and natural foods. These were alternatives to commercial grocery stores, places to get nutritional yeast and Ezekiel bread. Many of these early co-ops required their owners to work in the store for a certain number of hours each month and restricted sales to owners.
One of the reasons co-ops are so few and far between in the Chicago area may be the amount of time, money and effort it takes to open one. Mary Meyer, a Rogers Park resident for the last 30 years, was the first owner of the co-op. Meyer grew up on a farm in Ireland, always eating fresh produce.She loved the local produce she could buy at the Glenwood Sunday Market every summer weekend, and began to wonder how she could get food from the same farms year-round.
Mary Meyer, the first Wild Onion co-op owner and vice president of the board of directors, right, celebrates with Dan Arnett, general manager of another co-op, Chicago Market, during the grand opening of Wild Onion Market in Rogers Park on June 12, 2024. In 2022, the Wild Onion group signed a lease at 7007 N. Clark St. and got to work renovating the space. Now, the store boasts poured concrete floors, a bright seating area, and a mural of butterflies and flowers by Ryan Tova Katz. After raising an eye-popping $3 million from owners, both via the $250 cost for lifetime ownership in the co-op and donations, the group made up the difference with a loan from the local Devon Bank.
General manager Teresa Meza, second from right, and shopper Thistle Van Dyk, second from left, speaks to owners Annalee Letchinger, left, and David Hoppe at Wild Onion Market co-op during the grand opening in Rogers Park on June 12, 2024.