The Good Life Grocery Feeds Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill

BY JESSICA ZIMMER

Potrero Hill residents Kayren Hudiburgh and Lester Zeidman have long nurtured The Good Life Grocery, a natural foods store located at 1524 20th Street. Together, the duo weathered the COVID pandemic, 2008 recession, and different turns of fortune for close to five decades.

Good Life Grocery’s Bernal Heights location, at 448 Cortland Avenue, opened in 1991. Both stores feature deli counters and homemade desserts, sushi, seafood, and produce, with prepared foods made in-house daily. Catering is also available.

Hudiburgh and Zeidman pride themselves on vending locally made and organic products. Hudiburgh’s favorites include organic berries from Medina Berry Farms in Watsonville, organic grapes from Benzler Farms in Fresno, and sweet corn from Dwelley Family Farms in Brentwood. Hudiburgh also sources from the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market.

“Fresh fruit bowls made daily, entrees from our deli, and our new pre-cut produce items that save our shoppers a lot of time are new additions,” said Hudiburgh. “It’s great seeing our neighbors come and shop, getting to know lots of people and watching young folks grow up before our eyes.”

The Good Life Grocery has sponsored numerous events on the Hill and in Bernal Heights.

“Giving back to the community is an essential part of why and how we run our stores. The Potrero Hill Festival, the

Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center Fiesta on the Hill, the Potrero Hill Art Show, the Potrero Hill History Night, the Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema, Farley’s Pet Parade, and all the other different activities that the schools put on and need donations for. Giving back is essential for a neighborhood business,” said Hudiburgh.

The Good Life Grocery emerged from a grassroots effort amidst a national movement. The late-1960s and early-1970s saw the rise of “the food conspiracies,” movements of young liberals who mocked then-President Richard Nixon, who characterized them as Communist conspirators. The goal was to offer healthy, inexpensive, organic, and local food, which in turn would prevent the exploitation of workers, limit pollution, and encourage healthy lifestyles. Buying food in bulk and distributing it without excessive processing or packaging became a tool of resistance.

In the Bay Area, activists formed the People’s Food System (PFS), which encouraged groups to open stores in their communities. By the mid-1970s, almost every San Francisco neighborhood hosted a movement grocery.

A group of young Potrero Hill residents opened The Good Life in 1974. Additional PFS network stores included Other Avenues in the Sunset, which remains open; the still thriving Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in the Mission; Seeds of Life, also in the Mission; the Haight store in Haight-Ashbury; Noe

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