Kale fight at Park Slope Food Coop: Is this the most pretentious store in America?

Park Slope Food Coop and the Holy Kale: The alternative grocer, where celebrities can be spotted stocking shelves, has fed Brooklyn since 1973

 

Insiders dish on New York City's most pretentious grocery that involves a strict, seven-step application process and enrolling everyone in the household. A member can, however, find wild boar for 20% less than the competition.

 

A man emerges with groceries from the Park Slope Food Coop, where shoppers must work periodic shifts at the grocery store in order to buy there. Adrian Grenier flew the co-op for Clinton Hill after being sanctioned for skipping out on a shift.

A kale shortage incites widespread panic. A 4-year-old melts down when his parents won’t buy him dried papaya spears. And members debate natural childbirth while bagging nuts.

It’s tales from the front lines of the Park Slope Food Coop, temple to locally grown, antibiotic-free, passive-aggressive grocery shopping where you’ll find equal doses of corn and scorn.

“Do we have ...” is a constant drone heard over intercoms the community market installed throughout the store so shoppers and employees can get info about product availability and pricing.
 

Launched in 1973, the Park Slope Food Coop boasts more than 16,000 members and presents itself as a utopian alternative to conventional shopping.

“There was a day when we ran out of kale and people were ready to burn the co-op to the ground,” one member tells the Daily News. Like other members we spoke to, he asked that we withhold his name for fear of being booted out of the cult-like co-op. “The intercom went crazy with ‘Do we have kale!?’ ‘Do we have kale!?’ ‘Someone needs to get fired!’ It was doomsday.”

Even mini-members throw supersized tantrums.
“The weirdest thing I have ever seen at the co-op would have to be a 4-year-old hysterically crying because he couldn’t get dried papaya spears,” says a male co-op member in his mid-20s. “I didn’t even know what dried papaya spears were until I was in my 20s.”

'There was a day when we ran out of kale and people were ready to burn the co-op to the ground,' one member of the Park Slope Food Coop tells the Daily News.

 

The chaos extends deep in to the meat aisle, too.

“There is always a generally high level of neurosis regarding running out of anything,” one member shares under the strict condition of anonymity. The thirtysomething artist has been a member since 2010 and usually works in the cheese department or bagging nuts. “There was no brisket as of Friday. That may be an anxiety-volcano in the making.”
While working with a doula from California one shift, the subject of natural childbirth came up.

Park Slope Food Coop attracts health-conscious shoppers, as well as 'a high level of neurosis.'

“This Hasidic woman who was also on the shift was very pregnant, and she was interested and asking, ‘Well, what’s that about?’” recalls the artist. Once the conversation evolved into “finding your inner animal” and “becoming one with the Earth,” the woman was sorry she asked. “That sounds terrifying,” she said. “I think I’m just going to go to the hospital.”

Conversations over the intercom get “really snotty.” “Usually, it’s random stuff, like someone looking for a very specific vegan macaroon,” the artist says. Launched in 1973, the food coop boasts more than 16,000 members and presents itself as a utopian alternative to conventional shopping.

This PC purveyor crams a dizzying array of product into its cramped seven aisles stacked to the roof with thousands of items. They even vote on key issues like banning plastic bags or stocking Israeli products. They even vote on the vote to potentially ban Israeli products. Talk about a bag of nuts.

It attracts all kinds of Brooklynites - from grungy hipsters to fortyish vegan moms chiding their multiracial children in French as they jostle for locally grown rhubarb. Recently, customers searched for filtered coconut water to prepare for a snowstorm and another was breathlessly seeking chocolate goat's milk. The coop is so popular that claustrophobic conditions and endless checkout lines lead to “cart rage,” as one member puts it.