Just over two years after a much-celebrated opening in the Bayview, Duc Loi’s Pantry has closed. Despite help from City Hall, the family-owned grocery store on Third Street shut down in late January.
In a city where upscale groceries and farmers markets abound, the news is a blow to local government’s attempt to bring healthy options to an area of San Francisco many consider a “food desert” — a neighborhood where a lack of affordable, nutritious groceries contributes to a crisis of health disparities. In the Bayview and neighboring Hunters Point, low birth weight and diabetes-related hospital visits are two of the many health risks residents have experienced at much higher rates than the San Francisco averages.
With another nearby grocer, Smart & Final, also shuttered, the only remaining large-scale grocery store in the Bayview is a Foods Co. on Williams Street.
Duc Loi owner Howard Ngo confirmed the closure, citing a lack of business from neighborhood residents. “There are certain things in the Mission District [store] that sell like hotcakes, but it’s a different neighborhood,” said Ngo. “It seemed like we haven’t found the right method to deal with the [Bayview] neighborhood, so that’s why we stopped.”
Ngo’s other location, Duc Loi Supermarket on 18th and Mission Streets, enjoys heavy foot traffic and hasn’t relied on marketing. It remains open.
The city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development gave the Ngos a $250,000 grant to replace a Fresh and Easy on Third Street that closed in 2013. They tapped into a range of city services to help with employee recruitment and more; and the city also helped them secure a $4.1 million loan from the Small Business Administration to acquire, expand, and develop the site.
‘It’s not enough just to be here and expect people to come, you really have to do more.’
—Anietie Ekanem, a neighbor
The ribbon-cutting took place in October 2016. Cameras rolled, people applauded, the mayor and then-District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen gave speeches. “This neighborhood has waited far too long for access to the healthy foods we all need to survive,” said Cohen. “Now it is up to the community to sustain this investment by taking advantage of the healthy food options that will be offered at Duc Loi.”
It seems that never came to pass. Michelle Pierce, a lifelong Bayview resident, says there was a disconnect between local residents and the owners, whose Mission location is foodie-famous for its banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches. “Duc Loi catered to a specific taste, which is OK — except the majority of this neighborhood didn’t have the same taste,” says Pierce, executive director of the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates. “It was exotic food that we didn’t know how to deal with.”
The demographics of Bayview Hunters Point are changing. Once a large African-American majority in the decades after World War II, the neighborhood is now more than one-third Asian, according to a 2017 planning department report.
But Pierce and others say the problems were not just about changing tastes. She echoes other neighbors’ claims that the store shelves were often bare, and that it could be difficult to find something as simple as a loaf of bread.
Anietie Ekanem lives in the Third Street apartment complex above the now-defunct grocery store. In addition to often lacking basic items, Ekanem feels the store failed to properly market itself to the community. “It’s not enough just to be here and expect people to come, you really have to do more,” he says. “Several folks in the neighborhood came to them and gave them pointers on how to improve, but they never did it,” he adds.
It remains to be seen what will come of the property. Ngo says his family is deciding between selling the store to a new owner or attempting to reopen it themselves. OEWD officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Andrea Powell (@AndreaPowellSF) is a freelance journalist in San Francisco. She previously worked at Wired and San Francisco magazines.
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