The Good Life Continues

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, in a City in which the average business lasts no more than five years, The Good Life Grocery is a testament to its owners’ grit, and the support of loyal shoppers. 

The Good Life emerged as part of an anti-corporate zeitgeist that was fanned, in part, by the peace and civil rights movements. The idea, born in the 1970s, was to distribute healthy food through neighborhood networks. Energized by this cause, The Good Life opened its first storefront at 1457 18th Street in 1974. Kayren Hudiburgh, now a co-owner, got involved two years later. Her husband, Lester Zeidman, joined in 1980, chiefly responsible for finances. 

When the 18th Street building was sold in 1984, Good Life was confronted with a tenfold increase in rent. Support poured in from journalists and politicians, but most importantly from the store’s loyal “friends, neighbors, and customers,” as San Francisco Examiner columnist Stephanie Salter described it. The Good Life Alliance was created, with signs urging support to “Keep Our Good Life on Potrero Hill” plastered throughout the community.

While the new landlords weren’t influenced, the campaign provided financial support to move to the present 20th Street location. Neighbors who shopped at Good Life as children now tell their kids, many of whom attend nearby Webster Elementary School, that if they find themselves in trouble they can head to the store for help. 

Good Life continues to struggle with issues that confront many small businesses. Municipal permitting processes seem arbitrary, an expense that’s hard to cover in the tight-margin grocery business, especially while paying employees well. In 2023, City inspectors threatened to dismantle the bench outside the store because it was an insufficient number of inches away from the sidewalk’s edge. There was an unannounced placement of a bike rack that blocked the loading dock, and fines for not complying with a requirement to redeem recyclable bottles or cans for cash, despite the lack of onsite storage and closure of a recycling center nearby. These fines remain on the books, albeit unenforced, though a 2017 law exempted the store from the obligation. 

Today Good Life serves as a community anchor. It’s provided employment to young Black men referred by the Omega Boys’ Club and refugees fleeing conflict in El Salvador and other Central America countries. Many staff members began working at the store as teenagers and stayed for decades, including co-owner Samantha Zuvella, who began as a bagger when she was 17.

Hudiburgh shows evident pride her hardworking and tight-knit team. Describing how they stayed open and well-stocked throughout the pandemic, Hudiburgh said, “our task here is to feed the community; it’s an important job.”