by DANIELA XITLALY SANDOVAL August 5, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
Yesenia Ochoa grew up just five blocks away from Rainbow Grocery. She remembers it as “the weird store” of her childhood; the place where her family could always find flor de jamaica and other hard-to-source ingredients.
Today, Ochoa works there. She considers the San Francisco co-op a “community center without being a community center.” Every day she runs into people from her past: Former teachers, a childhood principal.
In a city shaped by constant reinvention, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative stands as a rare constant. It has not only survived but thrived with its radical, worker-owned model intact. As it approaches its 50th anniversary, the co-op is planning a public block party Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025, from noon to 6 p.m.
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Ellen Quain, 71, a longtime shopper, remembers the 1980s, when Rainbow operated out of its 15th Street storefront.
“My kids were little, so I would buy the bulk products there,” she said. “I have moved around a lot, but when I was close enough, I would come and shop here.” She still drops in when she’s nearby, browsing for a natural scrubber and some really great chocolate bars.
What keeps her coming back, she said, is trust.
“The prices are good, and if I’m not mistaken, their policy is to charge a certain percentage over what it costs them, so I trust that I am getting a good deal, and I trust that it is all organic.”
Now located at the border of the Mission District and SoMa, Rainbow sits in a neighborhood shaped by change. Just a short walk from Division Street, it is surrounded by big-box stores such as FoodsCo, Total Wine and Best Buy — corporate chains that represent everything Rainbow resists.
The co-op has anchored its current storefront on Folsom Street since 1996, continuing to stand out on purpose.
Founded in 1975 amid the upheaval of the loosely affiliated People’s Food System, Rainbow was born from the same spirit that fueled food-justice movements such as the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program and the San Francisco Food Conspiracy.
These were grassroots buying clubs in which friends or political allies pooled resources to purchase bulk food directly from distributors in an effort to bypass the industrial food system and offer access to the kind of fresh, unprocessed ingredients that weren’t available at many grocery stores at the time.
“Food is always a political issue,” said Gordon Edgar, Rainbow’s longtime cheese buyer, who began working at the store in 1994. “But it was especially politicized in those days.”
Edgar, now 57, has spent 30 years behind the counter and among the shelves of the co-op, where customers are often greeted by name and recommendations come with a story.
“I love curating the cheese case, but it’s really the relationships with customers that make this place what it is.” Edgar has regulars whose cheese preferences he knows by heart.
The co-op traces its roots back to two small storefronts near 16th Street: A food store and a general store, originally run by volunteers receiving a $50 weekly stipend, the equivalent of about $310 today.
Rainbow Grocery is a worker-owned cooperative, meaning its employees collectively own and democratically manage the business. Each worker-owner has an equal vote in major decisions, reflecting the co-op’s founding values of equality and shared responsibility.
Though modest in scale, the stores were backed by a bold idea: That food could be distributed ethically and labor could be organized without hierarchy. The concept attracted idealists, activists and those united by shared spiritual values.
“That part of the Mission wasn’t the greatest,” co-op worker/owner Pat Seguin told Mission Local in an interview about Rainbow’s 40th anniversary. “A lot of people couldn’t afford clean, healthy food, nutritious food.”
While other food conspiracies fractured under the weight of ideological divisions and internal conflict, Rainbow endured.
By 1984, it consolidated into a single storefront at 15th and Mission streets, and in 1996 moved to its current location at 1745 Folsom St., at the intersection of 13th and Folsom streets. Today, it remains one of the few surviving cooperatives from that original network.
“We own the building now,” Edgar said. “That’s a big part of how we’ve stayed in the Mission, and how we plan to stay.”
Beyond being a grocery store, Rainbow is a radical experiment in workplace democracy.
Everyone who works at Rainbow is an owner. After nine months on the job, new hires pay a $10 fee to become voting members of the cooperative. There is no CEO. Wages are equal, regardless of job title. Departments self-govern and hire their own.
B.P., 28, has worked at Rainbow for two years and says he values being in a place where he agrees with the ethics.
“I love that I don’t have a boss and that everyone is equal,” he said. “I have health insurance, and all the money goes back to the employees.”
Rainbow shares profits equally at the end of each fiscal year. For out-of-town shoppers like Robin Nash, 77, Rainbow’s values matter just as much as its product range. Visiting from Chicago, Illinois, she and her husband stop by when in town to buy honey, bulk cocoa, dried beans, and refillable sunscreen.
“People are so friendly and knowledgeable, and don’t mind helping me find something when I need it,” she said.“I like that they focus on non-meat organic produce and products you just can’t get anywhere else.”
Walk through the aisles of Rainbow and you’re bound to witness moments that feel more like neighborhood reunions than retail exchanges. “I even remember Benjamin Bratt’s dad shopping here,” Edgar said. “His brother made a movie with a scene where a character pulls out snacks from Rainbow. It’s part of the local lore.”
At a time when community institutions are increasingly priced out, Rainbow’s continued presence is more than a retail story — it’s a political one, a cultural one, and perhaps most of all, a hopeful one.
“We plan to still be here,” Edgar said. “We’re proud to be in the Mission. We feel part of the Mission.”
The 50th anniversary block party on Aug. 17 from noon to 6 p.m. will take place on Trainor Street between 13th and 14th streets and between Folsom and Trainor streets, with streets closed to through traffic from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
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DANIELA XITLALY SANDOVAL
I’m helping with Mission Local’s social media strategy and finding stories in the Mission. I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and raised in the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire in Southern California. I’m a UCLA alumna and am now pursuing my master’s degree in journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. In my free time, I enjoy going to the movies and running (yes, for fun!).More by Daniela Xitlaly Sandoval
