You have plenty of time to select a gift. Capitol Hill’s Central Co-op turns 40 this October — but the party planning is underway. You might want to think about a practical present, something useful on both offense and defense as the cooperative looks to thrive for another four decades against a growing array of competitors.

“We have grown and continued to thrive over the decades thanks to the participation of thousands and thousands of people who have joined in our collective-efforts,” CEO Garland McQueen said in a statement on the anniversary. “They have become owners, running for and serving on our board of trustees, working to keep our shelves stocked, and investing to keep our community effort strong for future generations. We truly are a community-grown grocery store.”

In the process of expanding to Tacoma — a new store for its southern partnership has faced construction delays but is now on track for a late summer opening — and having pulled back from ambitions that would have placed a second store on Broadway, Central Co-op remains a unique and robust force in local groceries with some 14,000 members and around 12,000 shoppers visiting its E Madison store every week. As it faces renewed competition and marks the four decade milestone, Central Co-op is also touting its local economic connections and a study that found 20% of revenue spent at the store went to goods purchased in Washington vs. 4% at grocery chains like QFC, Safeway, and Amazon’s Whole Foods.

It will have to do more to mark another 40 years. “Unfortunately we’ve become victims of what we do,” McQueen tells CHS about the high bar Central Co-op has set and mimicry from the big chains. “We’re going to have to be better.”

“Technology,” McQueen said, “is going be be a big factor.” But with Amazon sizing up one corner of the neighborhood where Whole Foods will open in the next year and making plans for an even more tech-focused grocery play on E Pike, McQueen said you shouldn’t expect the technology at Central Co-op to play out with robots and automation in the shopping experience. “We pride ourselves on being a personal contact,” he said. “We want to see our customers and they seem to like that too.”

You probably won’t even see self-checkout at Central Co-op. “You can also be efficient if you have the right person doing the job,” McQueen said. “Reaching out is more important to us.”

Jim Watkins was born in Virginia, grew up in Baltimore, lived in Minnesota for 20 years, has been in Seattle for 27 years. He’s been with the co-op for about two months. “I am the Food Service Manager for this store and when they open in Tacoma, I’m gonna be traveling between the stores. What I do here, is I work with prepared food, food people want to take home, convenient food. It makes people’s lives easier. That’s what I responsible for. Today we had a deep cleaning day, so we’re a little behind on production, so I’m playing catch up. I’m re imaging the food, because the food has always tasted good, but we’re trying to raise the quality, not only in taste, but in appearance. We’re trying to make the food more appealing to a broader range of people.” “The thing about working here, is that almost all of the ingredients, 99.9% are organic, GMO free, so it’s a pleasure to work in a situation like this. You get to work with really high quality food.” “One of the things I like about the Co-op is the culture. I like the mission and philosophy of the Co-op. I like the respect for the workers, the respect for the customers, and bringing that all together. I worked for Bastyr University for 14 years, and the mission is very similar to that and the culture is very similar to that.” “There’s a bit of an adjustment here because I’ve never really worked in a large, grocery store setting, but the mission and philosophy is something that I really believe in.”

Employees will be a big part of marking 40 years at the co-op. The store employs 121 people as of recent weeks paying an average hourly wage of $22.19 an hour. Workers start at $16.65 per hour and 100% coverage for health benefits is provided at 28 hours or more per week.

Central Co-op opened its doors on Capitol Hill on October 16, 1978. In those days, the store was at 12th and Denny on land the cooperative owned. It sold that property to help create a new store at 16th and Madison as well as taking on the significant chunk of debt to finance the project. It opened on E Madison in 1999. After nearly 20 years, its E Madison store needed a few updates. Shoppers are now greeted by an overhauled storefront, improved elevator system, and new staircase. And, nope, no self-checkout lines.

Before October 16, 2018 rolls around, Central Co-op is hopeful the new Tacoma store will be complete and open following a challenging start to the marriage that included a search for a new location. After that, it sounds like Central Co-op’s ambitions will focus more on the stores it has. In 2016, Central Co-op was vocal about its push to be the anchor grocery store in development around Capitol Hill Station. But a year later, the co-op said it was dropping its labor-backed bid citing cost concerns. The development led by Portland-based Gerding Edlen set to finally break ground this spring still does not have an anchor tenant signed, officials told CHS last week.

Central Co-op’s 2018 will be all about what it is building in Tacoma and what it has built on E Madison.

“Over the course of the year we plan to celebrate, through events and storytelling, not only the members who make up our in-store community,” McQueen said, “but also the larger co-op community including the wonderful Washington producers who support us.”

McQueen said the celebration is also about some of the longest running members of the cooperative including the 20 people still shopping Central who were among the 100 founding members. Those “veteran people who have been here for years” are also a good marker of what should come next for the market, McQueen said.

Central Co-op is located at 1600 E Madison. You can learn more at centralcoop.coop.

With reporting and photography by Alex Garland

BECOME A 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' CHS SUBSCRIBER TODAY: Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.