June 16, 2025
The company has already established two other free groceries stores across Metro Atlanta.
Goodr, a Black woman-founded tech startup focused on hunger relief and food sustainability, is expanding its efforts to the Midwest with a free grocery store in Chicago.
The venture will follow the company’s previous and current endeavors to ensure food does not go to waste, while also addressing food insecurity in vulnerable communities. Located at Trinity Hospital in Chicago’s South Side, the free grocery store will be its first permanent location in the city.
“This week, @goodrco opened our FIRST-EVER Free Goodr Grocery store inside a hospital on the South Side of Chicago,” wrote Goodr’s founder, Jasmine Crowe, on Instagram. “It’s our first permanent location in the city, and I honestly can’t describe how much this one means to me.”
Although based in Atlanta, Goodr aims to help those in Chicago and throughout Illinois who fall outside the margins of food assistance. Its location will also better serve essential workers employed at the medical center, before expanding these resources to patients as well.
She added, “Here’s why this matters: in Illinois, nearly 60% of food-insecure households don’t qualify for SNAP because of the income cliff. That means people who are working and still struggling to put food on the table fall through the cracks every day.”
Previously covered on BLACK ENTERPRISE, the free grocery stores initially began in 2021. Partnering with Gunna, Goodr built its first free grocery concept inside the rapper’s former middle school in metro Atlanta. Its success led to the establishment of another one at Martin Luther King High School on the city’s east side this year.
Given ongoing inflation and a layoff-filled job market, Goodr’s mission alleviates the burden of putting food on the table. Furthermore, its work addresses the persistent issue of food, waste while keeping communities fed. Now, Chicagoans can feel the impact of tech-infused solutions for food relief.
“I could never overstate the true need for Goodr, especially at a time like this,” continued Crowe. “And no matter how hard it has been for us, every new store launch, every new customer, every delivery, reminds me that the work we do matters so much.”
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