12/17/2023 0 Comments Green zebra kentonSedlar doesn’t see Green Zebra as a grocery store though – her vision is something of a hybrid corner grocery from her grandparent’s time and a modern day convenience store for urban neighborhoods where people shop daily and mostly walk to the store. that now averages about 40,000 square feet. The store had been built as an A&P decades before and is approximately 5,000 square foot, about one-seventh the typical grocery store in the U.S. 15 years in the industry since she had graduated from Kendall College with a degree in Culinary Arts – first as Purchasing Director for Whole Foods then CEO of New Seasons Market, a then 20-store chain based in the Northwest which has similar offerings and pricing to Whole Foods. I made the trip to the store based on what I knew about Lisa’s past. The long-term goal is to have 100 stores on the West Coast by 2025 three times the growth rate of the Green Zebra tomato.įour and a half years ago I stepped into the one and only (at the time) Green Zebra Grocery store in North Portland’s Kenton neighborhood to meet and walk the store with its founder and CEO Lisa Sedlar. A Green Zebra tomato, by the way, takes about 75 days to mature which means that Green Zebra Grocery has to add 5 new stores next year to stick to the DNA – which is exactly their plan. A perfect description of a grocery start up that wants to create an experience from different concepts and wants to change the way people shop for food. Green Zebra tomatoes certainly look different – they have light green stripes that turn to yellow as they ripen and then show a blush color at the edges of the stripe they are actually the result of four heirloom tomatoes bred together. Its flesh, according to Wikipedia, “has a classic tomato flavor and will be tangy and astringent when young then take on a balanced sweet tart flavor once fully ripe”. While naming a grocery chain after a tomato may seem odd, this store’s DNA seems to parallel that of its namesake. The chain wants to expand with 100 stores on the West Coast by 2025. Green Zebra is the future, according to Jeff Lenard of NACS – a convenience store that is part grocery, part bar, part restaurant and most importantly part community center.
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