Their Turn: The Bethlehem Co-Op Says It Will Open This Summer

May 4, 2025

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

I’ve been posting recently about the Bethlehem Co-Op, a publicly subsidized grocery store that is three years past its planned opening date.

It has received at least $3 million in public funds, state and federal.

This is their turn:

I am Domenic Breininger, Board Chair of the Bethlehem Co-op Market. I’d like to provide a summary on the status of our store in an effort to address some of this discourse. If you’d like to stay updated on our progress, I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, attend our public Board Meetings on the 3rd Monday of every month, or attend one of our weekly hard hat tours of the store. Additionally, please check out the interviews we did with the Morning Call, WFMZ, and The Brown and White where we discuss the challenges and successes we’ve had over the past year+. 

Our co-op is currently slated to open its doors this summer. The main drivers of our opening date have been delays in our ability to access our HUD reimbursement grant of $2.9M (took nearly 3 years) and the delivery lead time on large pieces of equipment such as HVAC, kitchen equipment, refrigeration, etc. Supplier delays and cost inflation have haunted us like many businesses but we were happy to learn recently that our last long-lead time item (refrigeration), will be delivered in July. We are waiting until the majority of these large items are delivered before we begin work to build out the store decor (signs, shelving, etc) as we need space to hold the equipment when delivered. Also, we don’t want to damage the decor while the equipment is being installed, which at times requires heavy machinery.

We have now embarked on a fundraising campaign called Sustainable Future to 1) help with some final store costs (training new staff, stocking the entire store with inventory, etc) and 2) help ensure we can sustain during our first year of operations. This is a very common approach for food co-ops nationally as they approach opening their doors. We consult the national co-op community regularly for lessons learned and best practices.

I’m extremely proud of the dedicated and passionate volunteers who, over the years, have helped make the dream of having a food co-op in Bethlehem become just months away from being a reality.