Midwest Gooh Group Establishing International Grocery Store on Madison’s East Side: Entreprenurialism Blended with Community Spirit
Jerreh Kunjabi (l-r) and Samba Baldeh brought their entrepreneurial spirit to Madison from their native The Gambia in West Africa.
By Jonathan Gramling
What has made America great — and on top of the game — for the past 2-3 centuries has been its willingness to accept immigrants with open arms as the immigrants pursue their own American Dream that benefits the communities and the country within which they reside. And while there are some right-wing people who would like to stem immigrants from coming to the United States, the immigrants’ impact on their communities and country continues unabated.
Samba Baldeh and Jerreh Kujabi exemplify that spirit and energy that immigrants bring to the U.S. They emigrated to the U.S. from their native The Gambia in West Africa and through hard work and persistence became IT specialists and made comfortable livings for them and their families.
But that same restlessness and sense of adventure led them to push further to become entrepreneurs and enhance their American Dream. First they started in the fast food business in the Food Court at West Towne Mall.
“It was Burgers Plus,” Baldeh recalled. “It went for some time. But what we ended up realizing was that it’s way out there in the western part of the city. And we have more of our immigrant population in the eastern part of the city. So we decided that once our lease was over to look for a place in the eastern part of the city. Eventually before we identified a place for a restaurant, we decided to pivot to something like the grocery store.”
They formed an LLC called Midwest Gooh Group and set about doing a market study.
“There is one African business off of East Johnson Street, which is mainly dried food stuffs,” Kujabi said. “It doesn’t have produce. There is one off of Lien Road, mostly with the same thing, just dried African food stuffs. But it isn’t like a grocery store. The African grocery on Gammon Road is the only one in town.”
Kujabi used to travel from his home in Sun Prairie to the store on Gammon Road, so he knew there was a ready market for African and other ethnic produce and foods located on Madison’s east side. And so they started to look for a location that would allow them to achieve their goals in the East Washington Avenue corridor.
“We were identifying areas that had challenges for folks to access food and partner with the city to address that need,” Kunjabi said. “We started out scouting out neighborhoods. We looked at the Elko neighborhood where the Sherwin-Williams store is now. Once we found this place, that’s how it came together. The city of Madison supported the project as well as the state of Wisconsin. We’ve been able to secure some grants from the city and also through the state through WEDC. The city support is through the Economic Development Department.”
The place that they found was the building that housed a perennial city blight, the former Visions strip club. And so the project was meeting several needs of the city and the neighborhood. It will have apartments on the second floor while the grocery store occupies the first floor and basement.
“We’re trying to accommodate a need that is identified by not only us, but also the city of Madison,” Kujabi said. “Behind us is the Truax complex. It has a high population of immigrants from all over the world including Hmong folks. There is a neighborhood on the other side of E. Washington Avenue. We just learned that where the bakery used to be is going to be a multi-use complex with 170 units. Most of the people whom we envision serving live in this neighborhood, low-income people. If you notice, the closest grocery store is the Hy-Vee down the street. Think about the challenges of not owning a vehicle and going to Hy-Vee. Our goal is to make sure that we provide access to people. E. Washington Avenue is heavily travelled. If you don’t drive and you have two kids in tow and you want to cross the street and buy your groceries and then you have your grocery bags and the kids, it’s a challenge. We really want to make sure that we address that by putting the service where the people are. The other thing that we are looking to do is provide affordability as well as access. There is a Kwik Trip here and all of that. But people need a food selection that is affordable. Communities of color are always left behind in terms of this kind of opportunity. It will also have a health component to it depending on the kinds of food that we are looking to carry.”
The grocery store, which will be called Gooh Grocery, which means “Number One” in an African language, will serve the food stuff needs of many immigrant groups — not to speak of native Madisonians — in an area that has been called a food desert.
“It’s going to be a mix of food,” Baldeh said. “The two of us are from the western part of Africa. We’ll definitely serve our community. But we want to be very inclusive of the whole continent of Africa with diverse food options. We will also have Southeast Asian as well as Indian and Pakistani foods. There are a lot of immigrants from those areas. In general, we will serve the Middle East also. We’ll also have European food, which is similar to American. It’s going to be a kind of global fresh food source for everyone, particularly local-grown foods. It’s going to be diverse. We’ve already identified suppliers from New York for the African part of it and Milwaukee and Chicago for the Middle Eastern part of it. And of course, we will also purchase some foods from Cisco. Our intention is to be able to work with farmers for local produce. We really want to engage the community.”
They picked the site and are designing their business model to make sure that they are accessible to all Madisonians.
“We will serve middle class and low-income neighborhoods that are in walking distance to here,” Baldeh said. “We’re on a bus line. We also started discussing options to get people here. Despite its proximity to places, sometimes it can be difficult to get here. As we grow, we want to be able to have a van so that we can do pick-ups and drop-offs to different neighborhoods. We would go to different neighborhoods at a specific time. Let’s say we would go to a neighborhood evert Monday at 2 p.m., pick them up and drop them off here and then we would take them home. We started discussing that. When we put all of the pieces together, we want to be able to provide that service as well. I know with many grocery stores now, you have online order and pick-up. But I think being able to give people that opportunity to be picked up and dropped off will make it more accessible than just ordering online. It’s also about community.”
It hasn’t been an easy road for Baldeh and Kujabi. They purchased the site in May 2021 and have been working with the forces that be to get through the red tape and make the grocery a reality.
“It took a long time to put everything together,.” Baldeh said. “We’ve been learning as we go. One of the reasons it took a lot of time is we had to get a loan from the banks. That process takes forever. Sometimes it is who we are and how we look causes it to take much longer, digging deep and looking around just to make sure that everything is okay. Even when it comes out okay, it’s like, ‘I just want to see …’ We did a lot of work to get the grants that we received. We’ve been working with banks to apply for loans and get approved by all of the banks where we submitted applications. It’s a lot of work, but at least we’ve gotten close to the end of it. It’s taken this long because of the complexity of it, but also who we are sometimes plays a part. We’ve never done this, so the banks want to make sure that if we’ve never done this, how can it survive. But we also did a lot of investment in the building and we are putting a lot of our own money into this venture so that whomever we are working with sees that we are committed to this project.”
And the supply chain and labor market problems brought on by the pandemic have also delayed the project.
“We need freezers, refrigerators and coolers,” Baldeh said. “It takes, at minimum, eight weeks to receive them. It’s also about labor. We all know that the state is struggling with workers all across the state. But we are happy and very, very pleased that we are able to work with Findorff on this. We believe that by March, based on our schedule, we should be able to get things done. As you can see, the apartments need a lot of work.”
As social entrepreneurs — and their attachment and commitment to community — Baldeh and Kujabi want the store to meet more than just their own economic benefit. While they are committed to earning a profit, they feel that the community is a partner too.
“The whole thing is to give back to the community,” Baldeh said. “It’s a business, so you have to make a profit. But at the same time, sometimes you have to give back to your community. And that is what we have been trying to do since we moved here. I remember about 20 some years ago is when we started giving back through the African Association. I served on the Urban League board and have volunteered with many, many organizations. It’s going to be tough at the beginning. But we think we can make it happen and hopefully, not only for the business, but also to serve the community. We want our business to be successful, but we also feel an obligation to support our community. The whole point is, ‘Make a profit, but don’t be overly greedy.’”
“In line with the impact that we envision to do, one thing that we didn’t touch on was the opportunity to work with MMSD and other community partners, whether it is job opportunities, trainings and physically being an outlet for them to see that this is possible within our community,” Kujabi added. “We can also do something like this. That is important to us.”
Baldeh and Kujabi have been able to pursue their American Dream as entrepreneurs because of the community support they have received. It is support that they have not forgotten and want to give to people coming after them who want to pursue their own American Dream.
