ST. LOUIS — When people have nowhere to buy food locally, their money is spent in communities other than their own. A neighborhood in North City is hoping to change that, starting with a local market and café.
"Everyone should have the opportunity to eat healthy and be well," Fatimah Muhammad, founding director of Be Well Café, said.
When grocery stores aren't nearby, it's harder to eat and cook with fresh, nutritious ingredients.
"The nearest grocery store is Aldi's on Natural Bridge [Avenue} and Grand [Boulevard] and it's about a mile and a half away," Thirty-five-year Hyde Park resident, Doug Eller, said. "It doesn't have everything though, so then you have to go downtown."
Hyde Park could be labeled as a food desert, but Muhammad said that's not quite the word for it.
"In this area, it is a historic food apartheid, not a desert, because a desert is by design. The apartheid is also because of the red lining and all of the misfunctions over here in north St. Louis," she said.
Muhammad is changing that with the Be Well Farmers Market. The market is open Wednesdays from 3 - 7 p.m. The once-a-week farmers market brings fresh produce and local eats to the otherwise quiet Hyde Park neighborhood.
"A lot of the fresh things we find here at the market, you won't find anywhere else," Eller said.
The Be Well Café and Farmers Market corner, a spot that doesn't even have street signs is growing.
A vibrant green and brick building, which was once vacant, is about to be a café, healthy bodega and culinary incubator.
On the first floor, there will be space for home chefs and future entrepreneurs to use a commercial kitchen.
"We'll have that for folks to prepare their foods to be able to sell to the Schnucks, the Field Greens, the Dierbergs, wherever they need to be," Muhammad said.
On the second and third floors, there will be office space for food purveyors, caterers and distributors.
Muhammad hopes to have the Be Well Café open by the end of 2023.