NORTH NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Despite all the culture you can find on Jefferson Street, fresh food is hard to find.
In reality, much of North Nashville is considered a "food desert" or an area where residents have few to no convenient options for affordable and healthy foods.
On Tuesday, the grand opening of S & E Food Market was cause for celebration.
Jaun Beard said the neighborhood's been craving a grocery store.
"I'm just grateful," said Jaun Beard. "My mother was a single mother, and we have a lot of single parents going on. We ate a lot of processed food and canned food because that's what we had to do to survive."
The new store at 2719 Jefferson Street is around the corner from Tennessee State University. It's the space S & E African Hair Braiding operated out of for eight years. Martha Lupai owned the beauty shop and now runs the store. She said she was driven to turn her salon into a food market after hearing from her customers about the struggles.
"People didn't have any regular food, fresh food, fresh vegetables and fresh fruits," said Martha Lupai. "They had to drive [far] to get it, so I said why not here? Why not Jefferson?"
The store is stocked with food from around the world and fair trade products.
A group of TSU students who stopped by on the first day were glad to find ingredients for Fufu.
"These [ingredients] are hard to find and like the closest African store is 30 minutes away from campus. Very, very far," Lupai said.
Lupai and her husband run the store together. They said they know people in this community cook with what they can find in local stores. They believed North Nashville deserved healthier food options.
"All of this street is sugar, food full of sugar. Chips. Food that is not good for our health, so that's why we say we're going to all fruits and vegetables so that we can build our community. I want to serve Jefferson Street and North Nashville. This is one of the reasons we're doing it," she said.
The owners of the new grocery store also own A & M Marketplace, the international food store inside the Nashville Farmer's Market
S & E Food Market is open every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
