Shocking state of $29m government-run supermarket in notorious Mad Max city

Daily Mail​

24-07-2025

A government-run supermarket that has cost Kansas City taxpayers $29million is filled with empty shelves and rotten smells, according to shoppers.
Images at the Sun Fresh grocery store show mostly bare shelves and coolers as well as empty meat, produce and deli departments.
Shoppers said the store once held the fresh items they needed, but that it has been mostly empty for the last three months - and that some of products available appear to be expired.
'The milk, I am scared to buy some,' shopper Michaelle Randolph told KMBC. 'Even the dates, they may have a few days over. I don't want to buy that.'
'It's a rancid odor. I think something is dead or something's gone bad,' added shopper Jon Murphy.
The store opened in 2018 in Kansas City; it was part of a project to bring life back into the city's embattled east side, which did not have a grocery store before.
Kansas City, Missouri, has recently been compared to the Mad Max movie series, which offered a terrifying vision of society collapsing into anarchic tribal violence amid resource wars and ecocide.
News of the government-owned grocery store's fate comes as several progressive politicians lobby for city-funded grocery stores to help low-income neighborhoods.
The Democrats' candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed the creation of five city-owned supermarkets to operate 'without a profit motive.'
Meanwhile residents of the area told The Washington Post they are scared to go to the store because of the rampant drug dealing and vagrancy both inside and outside the store.
Crooks and hoodlums have little to fear, residents said, as Kansas City has not had its own jail since 2009, and can only access a few dozen detention beds in lockups in nearby counties.
Surveillance cameras inside the store have caught several concerning at the shopping center, including a naked woman walking through the store, a person urinating and a couple fornicating on the lawn of the library in broad daylight.
According to local media, the store has received $28,997,400 in taxpayer money through bonds, loans, ordinances and subsidies.
But there is little to show for it, with the store a very poor cousin of privately-run supermarkets nearby whose clean aisles are stuffed with fresh food.
The City of Kansas owns the shopping center where the grocery store is located, after it spent $17 million to buy it and fix it up.
The store is run by the nonprofit Community Builders KC, and the city reportedly collects revenue from a 1 percent retail sales tax on purchases.
But the supermarket lost $885,000 last year, according to The Washington Post, and now only has 4,000 shoppers a week - down from from 14,000 a few years ago.
When asked about the store's poor state, Kansas City Democratic mayor defended the project.
'Mayor [Quinton] Lucas and Kansas City remain deeply committed to access to healthy food on the Prospect corridor,' the mayor's office told KSHB.
'The City will work closely with store ownership and all neighborhood stakeholders to support the long-term viability of the store based on normal revenues from customers and area consumers.'
Since its opening, the city has spent tens of thousands of dollars on security as the store dealt with crime in the area of the shopping center.