A New York startup that brings pop-up grocery stores to different cities has opened a Chicago location in Wicker Park for the next month.
Pop Up Grocer, founded in 2019 by Emily Schildt, opened its latest pop-up experience at 1555 N. Milwaukee Ave. on April 30. The store, which sells foods, snacks and beverages from emerging e-commerce brands, is open through May 30 from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. every day. The location will also offer café offerings from Michelin-Starred Elske.
At Pop Up Grocer, shoppers won’t find traditional grocery items like fresh fruits and veggies. Instead, the store sells items like, Lil Bucks, a Chicago company making buckwheat granola, and Simple Mills, another Chicago brand that makes gluten-free crackers and baking ingredients. To date, Pop Up Grocer has featured 600 different brands at its stores, Schildt said.
“We are a platform for visibility for emerging brands in the grocery space,” Schildt said. “For consumers, we’re a destination to discover products that they likely haven’t experienced or seen before.”
The company opens small stores in different cities for 30 days at a time. The Chicago location is Pop Up Grocer’s sixth outpost and will hold more than 400 products. The company has also opened stores in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.
“The idea for our pop-up is to create an experience and a sense of urgency to attend and to help market the products that we feature in the process,” Schildt said.
Schildt launched Pop Up Grocer’s first location in New York out of her desire for a better store to discover new and healthy food brands.
“I personally wanted a better grocery store, one that housed only the kind of products that I was looking for,” Schildt said. “Our typical customer is someone who is curious, and conscious about the things that they buy and eat.”
As opposed to buying products in bulk and selling them for a profit, Pop Up Grocer charges the brands it features in its stores a showcase fee to put their products in a specific pop up and then takes a small percentage for every item purchased. Pop Up Grocer employs about five local employees at each of its pop-ups.
While the Wicker Park shop is currently the only Chicago location Pop Up Grocer has planned, Schildt said they would return to the Windy City in other neighborhoods.
“If we’re well-received, we would love to return,” Schildt said.
