Park Slope Co-op Brings Home the Bacon
“Founded in 1973, the Park Slope co-op has grown so dramatically in recent years that it has been forced to limit the number of new members. Its balance sheet is so strong—the co-op paid off its mortgage in January—that general manager and founding member Joe Holtz wonders what to do with more than $500,000 in…
“Founded in 1973, the Park Slope co-op has grown so dramatically in recent years that it has been forced to limit the number of new members. Its balance sheet is so strong—the co-op paid off its mortgage in January—that general manager and founding member Joe Holtz wonders what to do with more than $500,000 in profits. Last year’s revenues were $39 million. If we continue to accumulate cash like this, he says, we’ll have to have a meeting and maybe lower our prices again. — Crain’s
Photo by Peffs
All the people I know who are members think the work would be better spread out to once every 2 months so members don’t get in each other’s way & the work isn’t so mindlessly “make-work”.
Err, claude, not Dave. Not sure why I thought that was dave’s post.
I think that’s what the Clinton Hill/FG group is trying to do, Dave. Just seems like a waste of resources to reinvent the wheel. Is expansion really “that” hard? You rent another space, install some freezers… distribution networks are already in place, and what am I missing?
The debate on whether to hold out for locally-sourced drywall or use the stuff from China? The agonizing trip to consensus about what kind of doorknobs to have on the doors? Concerns about recessed lighting during the renovation? Fervent discussions about banning plastic bags?
Okay, yeah… I am okay with missing all that.
Why can’t the business model just be adopted by someoene lse in one of the many other bohemian bourgeois nabes in bk? BoCoCa, as they say, or wburg? With all the disgruntled former members (and other haterz), you’d think someone would poach the good stuff, drop the bad, and reconceptualize the place elsewhere to make a profitable, un-mockable business.
my vision: a general store-type place near the water in far west brooklyn, with all goods arriving by sailboat from farms up the hudson. BOI-OI-OING!!
Park loper: >Go ahead, spread your uninformed and jealous resentment all you’d like!
Who’s uninformed? I was a 7 yr member (and for all I know, still am.)
> so if you don’t like it, by all means, please go away and shop elsewhere
See, that’s EXACTLY the type of attitude that keeps people away (though obviously not all.) The Co-op could be a much pleasanter place to shop & work if it wasn’t for the patronizing attitude and pettifogging rules (not many of which cannot be circumvented easily, to add to the lunacy)
LEND THE MONEY TO GREENEHILL FOOD COOP SO THEY CAN MOVE FROWARD FASTER.
it is not my thing at all (more of a union market guy personally), but you have to give these guys credit for somehow herding the cats and running a successful operation. Expansions are not easy, and that’s probably the main way for-profit retailers blow themselves up. They seem to be doing a good job for the core group of people to which the co-op means a lot, so seems like they’re pretty much satisfying their mission. Not everything has to be a chain.
okay i have an honest question… if there are so many workers with not much to do, why does it always look so grungey and emit a moldy smell!? yes ive passed it many times and looked in, only to be mortified as grunginess of it. is that part of the aesthetic? like earthy hippie or something? just curious. people always like to complain about regular supermarkets not being the cleanest, so i was just wondering the deal is there. maybe it’s a park slope thing? when i passed most houses and people have their windows open on the ground floors, they dont look very clean either!
*rob*
If any board members are reading this…I think there would be huge demand in South Slope / Windsor Terrace/ Greenwood. Options are rather dismal (key food) or overpriced (union markup), and the WT farmers market is only on wednesdays in the summer.