It looks like your neighborhood supermarket.
It feels like one, down to the shopping carts.
And that's the point.
“It sends a signal that Brother Benno’s cares,” said Paul McNamara, Brother Benno’s executive director.
The Indoor Market is Brother Benno's new 1,400-square-foot food distribution center. It celebrated its grand opening Wednesday. The food is free, and the market only serves homeless and working-poor customers.
McNamara said the market offers a dignified shopping experience to the people it serves.
“As you might be aware of, the homeless and working poor often are not as welcomed in certain institutions as you might think," he said. "And so we wanted to kind of give them this feeling of you're walking into a supermarket.”
One of the customers Wednesday was Brian Cecil, who said he's been homeless for the past 13 months.
“When I come here, I don't get the ugly looks that I normally get when I'm out outside of this area,” he said.
At the market, Cecil said he's found "everything from salads, fruits, different kinds of cheeses, pastries — got to have the sweets — breads, vegetables.”
McNamara said what’s great about this program is that people can pick and choose what they want, and there are limits on certain items, so nothing goes to waste.
“A working poor person might have a refrigerator. They can take a gallon of milk," he said. "Chances are, a homeless person doesn't have a refrigerator. If they're living out in the riverbed. And so they might take a smaller carton or just a single bottle of milk, you know, that they can consume in that day before it spoils.”
It’s a more efficient way to distribute food, McNamara said.
“When I get the food, I try very hard to make sure that none of it goes to waste,” Cecil said.
Wednesday's opening was ceremonial. The market started serving customers last month. The store is open six days a week, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and closed on Sunday.
Brother Benno’s says it will be serving about 150 people a day and providing around 150,000 pounds of food a month.
