When Rainbow opened in summer 1975, the People's Food System already had two stores: Seeds of Life, in the lower Mission, and Noe Valley Community Store. The ashram members who organized the opening of Rainbow Grocery ­ Rich Israel, Janet Crolius, Bill Crolius, and John David Williams ­ did so largely by studying and copying the operations of the Noe Valley store.

Around that time, many other community food stores opened, including: Community Corners (Bernal Heights), Noe Valley Community Store, Haight Community Store, Inner Sunset Community Store, Other Avenues Cooperative (Outer Sunset), The Good Life Grocery (Potrero Hill), Flatland Community Store (Berkeley), Ma Revolution (Berkeley), The New Oakland Community Store and Rainbow Grocery (The Mission).

The first Rainbow store was located on 16th Street near Valencia (where Café Macondo now resides), on what was then considered a "skid row." Despite the rundown nature of the street, Rainbow's location turned out to be auspicious as it was close to many neighborhoods populated by counterculture youth. Rainbow quickly became the busiest of the dozen or so community food stores launched in the mid-70s.

Design and construction of the Mission & 15th store was financed primarily with approximately $250,000 in customer loans. It was not long before the Mission Street store outgrew itself. Even by 1988, customers and workers were literally climbing over each other to get to products in the store. s Rainbow approached the end of its 10-year lease, it was more and more apparent that the space at Mission and 15th was not adequate. In 1992 the store decided to begin looking for a new space. It was four years in the making - locating a space, negotiating a lease, coming up with a design, and finishing construction.

One major factor that helped Rainbow in its move to Folsom Street was the ability to get a bank loan ($1 million from First National) with backing from the city government. The city backed (guaranteed) the bank loan in part because Rainbow would be creating jobs and in part because Rainbow was moving into a then economically-depressed neighborhood, an Enterprise Zone designated for economic development funding. The city also lent Rainbow $400,000 in addition to backing the bank loan.

Fortunately there are many people who are interested in organically grown and locally produced foods to keep our doors open. We continue to stay true to our mission and hope to inspire others in the realms of good food and cooperative living.