Birmingham, Alabama: Fountain Heights Opens We All Eat Market, Its First Grocery Store in Nearly 70 Years

Fountain Heights has a grocery store again. We All Eat Market opened on Saturday, November 7, inside Heart of the Farm in the historic Fountain Heights neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama, in front of a packed crowd of residents, community leaders and well wishers, Bham Now reported. It is the first grocery store in the neighborhood in more than 70 years, the Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative said in its November 9 announcement.

Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Tyson, speaking in sight of shelves stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables, called the store "our version of Whole Foods," Bham Now reported.

Built by the neighborhood itself

The cooperative was founded in 2016 by M. Dominique Villanueva and Christopher Gooden, a husband and wife team who live in Fountain Heights. Villanueva told the opening crowd that the work began with one garden in their front yard and a handful of neighbors who decided they were tired of waiting for someone else to feed their families. One garden became 16 farm plots, and the goal is 119 plots by 2030, Bham Now reported.

Those plots first fed a community supported agriculture program, called We All Eat CSA. The cooperative says that program was the first in Alabama able to accept EBT and to take part in the Double Bucks program. The new market sells produce grown on the neighborhood plots along with other grocery items, and much of what it sells is grown just down the street, the cooperative said.

"For almost 70 years, families in Fountain Heights have had to leave their own neighborhood just to buy groceries, and every dollar they spent left with them," Villanueva said in the cooperative announcement. "The We All Eat Market changes that."

What the market is meant to do

Heart of the Farm was designed to serve more than 3,000 residents in an area with limited access to fresh, affordable food, the cooperative said. The building holds the market and a community kitchen that offers local food businesses affordable commercial kitchen space. The cooperative is hiring neighbors to run the store.

The project was described before the opening as a $1 million project backed by community members and outside funders. In 2025, the Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a $150,000 agreement with the cooperative to support the project, the cooperative said.

Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin said in the announcement: "Access to fresh, healthy food shouldn't depend on your ZIP code. We All Eat Market is more than a new grocery store; it's an investment in Fountain Heights residents, neighborhood revitalization, and the kind of community we want to build."

The cooperative also runs a nine month paid training program for new urban farmers, called the Freedom Harvest Apprenticeship, Bham Now reported.

Hours and what comes next

We All Eat Market is at 1201 16th Street North, Birmingham, Alabama 35204. Bham Now listed its hours as Tuesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and closed on Monday. Villanueva reminded the crowd that the store will need neighbors to support it through the year, Bham Now reported.