Hodgetwins examine SunFresh, a 2018 city-funded grocery store in East Kansas City's Linwood neighborhood that now struggles with empty shelves and rotting food despite employing 70 to 80 people. While initial reports hailed it as a food desert solution, 2025 footage reveals severe deterioration attributed by owners to theft and drug deals, even as the business loses millions after two years. City Council Member Melissa Robinson proposes $1.2 million for security upgrades, sparking debate over whether municipal subsidies can sustain viability in high-crime areas or if such ventures are destined to fail without addressing underlying social issues. [Automatically generated summary]
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Oasis in a Food Desert00:08:03
An oasis in a food desert.
Now hundreds of people have a clean, healthy place to shop in East Kansas City.
The much anticipated SunFresh officially opens tomorrow.
Stephanie Kayser has a sneak peek inside this morning.
This is that Linwood and Prospect Stephanie, a community that definitely needs this.
Sunfresh.
Yes, they definitely.
You see the customers, right?
Nothing but sub-Saharan.
So this is one of these places where there's no, you know, like Walmart and Chicago is closing down.
Right.
But because it's too much crime.
Yeah.
I'm leaving.
Y'all, I don't care.
Y'all need to starve to death.
Y'all deserve it, right?
So in Kansas City, there's a food desert because of the crime.
Yeah, they don't deserve a grocery store.
They don't deserve one.
But so they got the city invested.
This is a government-ran grocery store, right?
This is open today.
Definitely need this here, Gina.
And it is busy this morning.
Workers are in here getting ready for it.
The doors even open.
And people out here have a lot of options.
This section, people can just come up, grab things, and go on the run.
There's also a lot of produce, something people didn't have before in this area.
Like you said in the intro, this was a food desert.
That means a lot of people didn't have healthy, good food options to go to.
They had to go to just convenience stores in the area, things like a 7-Eleven and go to several different places to really make it work.
And people had to take the bus or go a long way to be able to get that good, healthy food.
Now people don't have to do that.
And that is a big deal for this community.
And the owners here hope the success of this rubs off and helps revitalize the rest of the area.
This community needs a great grocery store.
And I think we provided it here.
We've got a pretty nice store here.
Have to save yourself.
And they deserve it.
You know, they deserve a good store.
They don't deserve it.
Now, this store employs about 70 to 80 people.
So they have an invested interest in how well this store does.
And everybody out here really wants this store to stay looking as good as it does on day one.
Again, Method.
All right, so it hasn't opened up.
It was that grand opening.
This video is seven years old.
Let me show you now what the Negroes did to it.
Yeah, we got a new show for you.
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All right.
Now, this video is three months old.
Okay.
But then I got another video that's a couple days old.
City leaders want to avoid a food desert in East Kansas City.
One city council member hopes to help a struggling grocery store from closing.
The Sun Fresh Market, 31st and Prospect.
It rests on city-controlled property that's been plagued by problems.
Fox for Sean McDowell live outside the grocery store tonight where supporters say crime has been holding that business back, Sean.
John Brea, Fox Four News spoke earlier today with Community Builders.
That is the community nonprofit that helps manage the SunFresh store.
Emmett Pearson Jr., their CEO, complained to us that there's not enough that's being done to curtail drug deals and prostitution in this area, including this parking lot behind us.
There's one city council member who says that she intends to do something to help it.
Meanwhile, store shelves are looking a little empty.
I was in there a couple days ago.
It's bare.
Inventory at the Sun Fresh store at 31st and Prospect is running thin.
Our Fox 4 News cameras were surprised to find empty shelves on Friday morning and some staple items that aren't available at all.
If you don't have the folks that are coming in and patronizing, how are you going to replenish the shelves?
Third District's pretty much saying everybody's coming in, just stealing stuff and walking out.
Yeah.
City Council Member Melissa Robinson believes municipal money can help.
On Thursday, she proposed an ordinance to allocate $1.2 million to help upgrade the store and to hire more security staff.
The store owner tells Fox 4 News he's operated this SunFresh store at a financial loss for at least two years.
If you're not a full-line grocery store, you can't offer WIC.
And that's an important factor here.
And if we want that store to be viable, it's my understanding and all the research that I've done that it's going to require a level of city subsidy.
The closest full-line grocery.
The city's already put millions of dollars into this store and they still can't take it.
Yeah, taxpayer dollars.
And see, this is the thing.
Like the profit margins in grocery stores is not that high.
Now you got to waste all this money on security and keep people from stealing.
And plus, you're not going to keep anybody from stealing.
Not a profitable, viable business.
Tree store is at least a mile away.
Neighboring businesses want to see SunFresh succeed here.
I feel like it's a central place.
Everybody kind of go there and get their snacks.
Marcus Craig manages the City Gear location just across Prospect Avenue.
Good community.
It brings a sense of togetherness.
You got all these different people and different ethnicities and things like that coming all in one to make up this neighborhood and community.
So each store kind of has its essential element to it.
Shut up.
Shut up.
You don't even know what the hell you're talking about.
Councilwoman Robinson also points out for us that a previous grocery was here for a long time and then left.
And then once it did, this location sat empty for a number of years.
And when that happened, the neighboring businesses also dried up and ended up leaving as well.
The ordinance that she's proposing to the city council will be read for a second time this coming Tuesday.
Sean McDowell.
All right, now this is a couple days old.
Following up on tips we received from viewers about deteriorating conditions at the SunFresh grocery store in the Linwoods shopping center off Prospect.
First off the smell.
I mean it's just ridiculous.
I watch people walk in and walk out.
The grocery store has received financial assistance from the city, but has been unable to keep those shelves stocked in an area that in the past has often been referred to as a food desert.
Around here, a good thing don't last too long.
And it will impact a lot of people and a lot of families.
Man, you can walk around with a mask on in the year 2025.
KSHB41 News reporter Alyssa Jackson went to the store to witness it for herself and is amplifying the voices of frustrated customers.
That's that insurance company that community leaders.
It's clear this SunFresh at 31st and Prospect is struggling.
This is the first section people see when they come in.
There's barely any produce.
A lot of the coolers and shelves around the store look the same way, empty.
So shoppers have been asking us, if the store isn't closing, then where's all the food?
A rotting smell comes through the door and anywhere you turn, you'll see products that need to be restocked.
No hot food or deli.
There was a time this store was on life support.
I can tell you today right now, it's damn near dead.
This is a new low, even to people like Pat Clark, who's watched the store.
What do you talk about?
That store is on life support.
It's already dead.
You just need to pull the plug.
Yeah.
Go through its ups and downs.
30 days ago, hell, we looked like a grocery store again.
The city owns the Linwood Shopping Center.
A non-profit.
Profit operates the grocery store.
Loomwood Shopping Center.
A nonprofit operates the grocery store.
Public and private investments are in the millions of dollars for the center.
The nonprofit didn't respond to a request for comment.
I did ask the mayor's office if the city had plans to step in and consider additional funding.
The office responded, 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.
The Struggle for Profit00:01:38
Where is the money at?
I'm asking where the money is.
The shelves could indicate the future of the store.
Come in here.
Look what's going on.
They also say a lot about how much patience people have left.
Let this store close everything on this lot will start to fail.
Then whose problem is it then?
Alyssa Jackson, KSA.
Your problem.
Nearby live down.
That's y'all's problem.
Yeah, because y'all's people don't know how to act.
Yeah, like up in Chicago, all those Walmarts to closed down, right?
They said they left because they was racist.
Nah, y'all don't know how to act.
Y'all have no decorum.
Yeah.
And they invested millions of dollars in the store.
Yeah, they didn't want to be.
They don't want to be honest with the patrons.
That store is pretty much done.
They're cutting their losses.
They're waiting for y'all to buy a little bit of food left in that store.
And then they're just going to, y'all go show up one day.
It's going to be a red piece of paper on the door.
That's what they're going to do.
They're going to come out there about 3 o'clock in the morning, put it on there.
Put it on the door.
And this is what that New York City mayor wants, Ma'am Donnie.
He wants to make food.
Something about he wants to make city-funded grocery stores.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That shit don't work.
To run a grocery store, any viable business, man, it's got to be.
It's got to be properly owned and it's got to be for profit.
Yeah.
If it's ran like a charity, you're going to get this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Only viable business you can do that with is Goodwill.
People donating clothes.
That's a viable business, but people donating food and then you got a bunch of people coming at stealing the food and ain't nobody buying the food.