At the corner of Ross Road and Sky Harbor Drive in Del Valle, roughly 15 miles southeast of the Capitol, around the corner from a convenience store and down the road from luxury apartments, lies an unkempt plot of land surrounded by a fence.
It’s empty now. Nothing but grass, weeds and a few barren trees cover the 1.7-acre lot. But soon, if everything goes according to plan, it will be home to a long-waited community grocery store.
After three years of studying, planning, securing funding, finding land and drumming up support, the Del Valle Food Co-Op expects to open a grocery store this fall in a community that has long gone without one.
The market won’t be big, said Chris Reyes, the co-op’s board chair. It’s slated to be housed in a 24-by-64-foot renovated school portable at 5807 Ross Road, near clusters of houses and large apartment complexes.
The plan is to stock fruit, vegetables and staples. The property will also host events, classes and gatherings, aimed at bringing neighbors together.
The new store is about more than food, Reyes said. It’s about autonomy, community and a refusal to keep waiting on others to bring Del Valle what it needs.
“The sentiment we want to get out there is one of empowerment,” he said. “We want the community to decide what they want to do.”
The co-op has had false starts. The group expected to launch a store in 2025, but finding the right spot proved difficult. There’s still significant work to do before getting the store off the ground. Still, the co-op says it’s on track.
But after years of disappointment, some residents aren’t getting their hopes up just yet.
Del Valle residents Jose and Barbara Martinez have been waiting 16 years for a real grocery store to come to the southeast Travis County community. They’ve paid high prices at local convenience stores and put up with hour-long excursions to and from the H-E-B nearly 10 miles away. They’ve heard talk about new grocery stores coming to Del Valle, only to be disappointed when they didn’t.
“I have to see it to believe it,” Jose Martinez said. “I’m skeptical.”
A long-standing food access gap
Del Valle is a food desert, meaning its more than 28,000 residents don’t have easy access to a full-scale grocery store. Some people drive 20 to 30 minutes to the closest H-E-B. Others stock up at Dollar General or gas stations, where prices tend to be higher than full-scale grocery stores.
In 2020, the median annual household expenditure on food in Del Valle was $8,200, surpassing the national average of $7,316, according to a 2024 report by the Central Texas Food Bank.
Del Valle residents have long hoped its burgeoning list of major developments would bring them the grocery store they need. They thought Circuit of the Americas would attract one. It didn’t. Neither did the Tesla Gigafactory or new housing developments.
Barbara Martinez, 55, says the locally inflated prices add up. Recently, she wanted corn on the cob for dinner, but balked at the $2.89 per ear price tag. At H-E-B, it’s generally $1 per ear.
Same with ice cream, she said. A half-gallon can run about $10 in Del Valle, when it’s $8 or $9 elsewhere. Buying it cheaper means going to Austin, she said.
“Then you still need the bananas and strawberries and things if you want a split,” Martinez said. “So then it’s ‘Let’s go into town to get it.’ I don’t want to go into town.”
Hopes ran high in 2016 when H-E-B bought 17 acres in the Del Valle area. Residents signed petitions, and city leaders urged the company to break ground as soon as possible. Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, whose district includes part of Del Valle, implored H-E-B in a 2023 letter to open a store, despite the fact that it had “opted out of building until the area becomes more developed,” she wrote.
The next year, the company announced it was selling the land back to the developers.
Residents take matters into their own hands
By then, the Del Valle Food Co-Op, started by residents after years of waiting for the grocery store that never came, had taken matters into their own hands. The pandemic had underscored how badly the community needed access to healthy, locally-available groceries.
“It just highlighted again how terrible the food access is over here,” Reyes said.
The City of Austin devoted $500,000 in stimulus funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to plan, design and operate a Del Valle grocery store. The co-op teamed up with Go Austin/Vamos Austin, the Austin Co-Op Business Association and national experts to build a business plan. They held community meetings, took leadership training, conducted surveys and knocked on doors to engage neighbors.
More than 300 people have pledged to become co-op members, meaning they will own shares in the store, be eligible for discounts and have more influence in co-op decisions.
But finding land for the store was difficult, Reyes said. There were flood plains and zoning issues to tackle and they needed a site near public transportation. Ultimately, the group decided to lease the Ross Road property with an option to buy in the future.
Launching a community grocery store can be successful, said Joel Gittelsohn, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The key is to have strong community support and a focus on specific offerings.
“Let’s say it’s fresh produce,” he said. “Do that part, very, very well and not go overboard in terms of trying to stock every single possible thing like a big supermarket. They won’t be able to do that.”
The co-op should offer culturally appropriate foods so people can make the meals they enjoy, he added.
Community input is a big part of the plan, Reyes said. On its Instagram page, the co-op asked residents what they’d like to see at the store. Among the answers: Sartori Asiago, Aleppo pepper, tofu, pastries, oat milk, and fresh produce such as spinach, lettuce and leeks.
Barbara Martinez said she wants more affordable food than what she sees in convenience stores.
“Convenience is not always convenient,” she said.
The co-op wants the store to be about more than food, Reyes said. Del Valle has few places where residents can gather with their neighbors, so they envision the store as a pedestrian-friendly hub for activities.
A small start with big ambitions
Reyes said the store will run as a pilot program for one to three years while they figure out what works for the community. After that, the group hopes to be successful enough to raise $5 million to build a permanent store.
“It should be plenty of time for us to understand what the community wants to buy and get our sea legs,” he said.
Fuentes, who has worked closely with the co-op to develop the project, said she’s frustrated that it is taking so long to get residents the food they need. But she’s also convinced they’re moving in the right direction.
“The Del Valle community deserves more,” she said, “and it deserves the best.”
