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Rainbow Grocery, S.F.’s iconic worker-owned co-op, turns 50

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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