Atlanta’s city-owned grocery store is an oasis in its downtown food desert

FastCompany: If you followed New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, it may have been the first time you heard of the concept of a “city-owned grocery store.” The idea is novel but not new. Other big cities are also considering using the structure to bring grocery costs down and fill gaps in food deserts. Atlanta is one of them. Downtown Atlanta had lacked a grocery store for decades when, in 2022, Mayor Andre Dickens began trying to lure major chains to the neighborhood. After years of disinvestment, the area didn’t appeal to businesses. Still, it is full of office buildings, university housing, and a growing residential population.

So, officials took matters into their own hands and opened Azalea Fresh Market, a city-owned grocery store, in a former Walgreens in September 2025. The market isn’t 100% operated by Atlanta. It’s a public–private partnership led by the city, which invested $8 million for two locations (the second, in Southwest Atlanta, is still in development). Private partners include Invest Atlanta, local grocery chain Savi Provision, the Independent Grocers Alliance, and creative agency Cohere, which steered the store’s visual identity, from branding to interior design to packaging.

Savannah College of Art and Design students named it after Georgia’s state flower. The city’s role is to help the store handle the grocery industry’s extremely thin profit margins (which can be as little as 1%). With Atlanta shouldering some of the operational costs, the market can sell food for less. Cohere founder Antoinette Marie Johnson says that Azalea’s prices are about 18% to 22% lower than those at comparable corporate grocery stores. And as more stores open, the budding chain can negotiate even better deals. Though critics of city-run grocery stores have called the concept a “socialist freebie,” others consider it a public service.

“City-supported grocery models aren’t just an ideology,” Marie Johnson says. “They’re about solving for real-world access gaps that traditional grocery hasn’t yet addressed.” Cohere is already in talks to do similar work in Baltimore and, yes, with Mamdani’s administration in New York.

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The article discusses a significant initiative that addresses food deserts through innovative branding and public service strategies, making it highly relevant and impactful for brand strategy professionals.