Moving up Prince

Daily Groceries Co-op announced its plans to move up the street on Prince Avenue later this year. Currently located at 523 Prince Ave., the organic grocer and co-op plans to move to 1190 Prince Ave. on July 1, 2023, settling into its new home base next to The Flying Biscuit Café.

Daily Groceries is Athens’ only community-owned grocery store, according to its GoFundMe. It opened in 1992 after the closure of Bell’s Grocery Store left a hole in the community. It moved locations once in 1997, but it has always called Prince Avenue home. This move is not a new idea; it has been in the works for multiple years.

The new location will have a lot more to offer. Daily Groceries plans to expand the deli section, which houses ready to eat sandwiches and pizzas that customers can bake at home. With more floor space, it will be able to support more local vendors and have more diversity in its options.

“There’s only so much space in the existing location for local vendors to sell stuff,” Troy Simon, one of the board members of Daily Groceries, said. “They sort of jam stuff in where they can, but in the new space, the plan is to have greatly expanded options.”

Simon expects Daily Groceries will have the additional space to explore entirely new products, like a local florist or an in-house coffee roaster. The larger building is “just going to break it wide open for the possibilities,” Simon said.

On March 23, 2023, Daily Groceries created a GoFundMe with a goal of raising $150,000 for its move. As of April 4, it has raised $25,508.

“Fundraising is going well. It’s, I think, in a week and a half, we’ve achieved nearly 20% of our goal. So I think that’s huge, “ Shelley Ruth, general manager of Daily Groceries, said.

The GoFundMe details the reasons for the move. These include: a bigger space with more parking, achieving greater buying power and expanding the inventory.

“The move is about expansion. And it’s about being able to have that volume purchasing discount that the big stores get that we don’t, and that discount would be passed on to our customers. We’re nonprofit, I don’t think that’s emphasized,” Ruth said.

“We’ve seen local favorites — The Grit, Heirloom Cafe and Collective Harvest — close their doors in the past year, and we lost Ike & Jane’s not long before that,” the GoFundMe said. “The Prince Ave corridor is still one of Athens’ treasures despite these losses, and we like to think that Daily Groceries has helped make it that way.”

Ruth said the move will happen whether or not the

GoFundMe goal is met.

“You know, our mission has always been the same. If anything, I’ve seen an increase in a desire to be a part of an independent grocery store that really focuses on local food. I think that’s getting stronger and stronger,” Ruth said.

Regarding the move, the store plans to close for one night at its current location, then open the new day at the next one.

“We get a lot of questions about this [current] location and we will be open and going strong and fully stocked until the move,” Ruth said. “We’re going to close the doors one night, load up the truck and go and open over there.”

Simon became involved with the store because he raises chickens and asked the store if it had extra vegetables being composted. Before long, the produce that was going to his chickens helped create the eggs that were being sold at Daily Groceries. This arrangement began around 2014, and Simon recently joined the board.

Simon said the current location is “not a long term sustainable space because there’s just not enough room on the shelves to cover the number of employees you need to pay.” Simon pointed towards the rising cost of rent on Prince Avenue as another reason for the move.

Simon encouraged people to show support, whether through the GoFundMe now or through shopping at and checking out the new store in the future. He said it all comes down to having a local grocery store — another spot where you can support lots of local businesses — and to the community will decide whether they continue supporting.

“It’s exciting, and we’re doing it no matter what,” Ruth said. “We’re gonna raise our money to the best of our ability and we’re gonna get it. Whatever we get, we’re gonna be grateful. And we’re gonna make a move no matter what. It’s a way for our co-op to expand on our community.”