Photo: Michael Nagle/NYT

“The co-op is worse than socialism. Because at least in a socialist country, if you know the right people, you can get out of it.”

“For a long time, the co-op member who lived furthest away was from—can anyone guess?—Ithaca, NY. Once a month, he would drive all the way to Park Slope, do his work shift, and then load up his car with groceries. There’s a food co-op in Ithaca too, but apparently it was still worth it to come all the way here.”

“It’s something between an earthy-crunchy health food haven and a Soviet-style re-education camp.”

Love it or hate it, the Park Slope Food Coop is undeniably the nation’s most notorious cooperative grocery store, a bastion of democratic ideals in one of New York’s most elite neighborhoods. As the name suggests, a cooperative is a group of people who work together in a jointly owned business. Most food co-ops in the U.S. have several tiers of members, where some members contribute labor to the co-op and pay less, while other members only shop and pay a bit more. The Park Slope Food Coop does not trifle with such distinctions—to shop at the co-op, every adult member of your household must work a 2 ¾ hour shift every four weeks. No exceptions. This is one of the strictest labor requirements in the country for a food co-op.

Which is to say, if you want to become a member, you will have to work very, very hard. No, I don’t mean the work requirement. I am referring to the sign-up process. To join the co-op, you must first register for an orientation session. Registration slots are available online, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between 3 and 4 pm. For my first few attempts, every time I remembered to check online, all the slots had already been taken. Finally, I set myself a Google Calendar reminder, sat on the orientation page and hit refresh until I landed a slot.
Continue reading Park Slope Food Coop: Will Work for Food →