Seward Community Co-op - Friendship Store — Local services in Minneapolis

I’ve been a member for at least 15 years. I’m also 40 years old and a middle school teacher, and I’m also a mom of a young baby right now. I’m super sick, my baby is sick, she’s asleep in the car right now after much screaming, and all I needed to buy was a rotisserie chicken and some of the precooked deli rice so we could eat something today that wouldn’t make us sicker while we are home sick. I called in a collaborative and vulnerable spirit, but the coop manager was not willing to help figure out how I could purchase just these two things curbside like they used to do during the pandemic. Instead she told me - coldly - that in effect, I’d just have to stay in my car in the parking lot til my baby woke up and then come inside with a sick screaming baby and shop for them around their patrons while sick myself, instead. I do get that it’s fundamentally not their job to solve this, but if a coop with decades of history in our south Minneapolis human community isn’t a place we can turn to for some basic human compassion and help problem solving for a vulnerable mom and baby so they can literally eat today, I don’t know what kind of world...

Eh it's nice enough but it doesn't have the same warmth and vibrancy as the Franklin Ave location. (It is also literally very cold physically.) I'm also somewhat irked that they don't carry all the same items, especially in the bulk section, and that many items can only be purchased in pre-bagged quantities. Like, say I only want 5 figs for dessert after the meal I just ate there. Nope can't do that. Have to buy a bag of them and spend like 3-4 times as much as I wanted to. Sure, I'll have a supply of figs for the future, but that's not the point. The issues certainly have nothing to do with space concerns, as the place is huge and wide open. In fact, someone with agoraphobia might have a problem going there. A lower ceiling would have helped with that.

Anyway, it's not bad and I don't mean to be a complainer, it's just that it isn't great like...

I have been a loyal member for several years and visit several times per week. I was informed on my last visit the front end staff was freaking out because I only had a face shield covering my face. This is upsetting due to the fact I have a medical condition. I have complied with the bogus, long overdue mask wearing due to others freaking out. Businesses are suppose to be compliant with medical restrictions. As a Naturopathic doctor the masks people are wearing DO NOT stop the tiny droplets of this virus. I understand the Governor has mandated the mask wearing..mandate is not law. I have been shopping primarily at the Lakewinds store..they are very cool about medical conditions. I Intend soon people will realize the virus has a 99.7% survival rate and the real danger lies in wearing a mask for hours at a time in healthy and...