Goodr started in 2017 as a food-waste logistics company, moving surplus food to Atlanta's most food-insecure neighborhoods. It has since reached 19 states, opened more than 28 free grocery stores, and put over $81 million in economic value into the communities it serves.
Founder and CEO Jasmine Crowe-Houston came to think that was not quite enough. "We've opened free grocery stores inside of schools, senior facilities, and recreation centers," she said — but what the neighborhoods needed was an actual store, where anyone could shop and afford it.
The first Goodr Community Market opened on Edgewood Avenue in Sweet Auburn at the end of July 2025.
Why Edgewood
Sweet Auburn has struggled with food access for decades, even through recent commercial and residential growth — the historic core of Black Atlanta, and a food desert. Crowe-Houston singled out a nearby senior center, home to nearly a thousand older adults, where the trip to fresh food ran 34 minutes before the market opened.
"We're still doing the work we've always done," she said. "But now we approach it as, 'How do we help more families who don't live near fresh food, and make it affordable?'"
A grocery store is an unglamorous kind of development news. It is also the kind that decides whether a neighborhood is somewhere people can actually live.
Reported by Atlanta Magazine.