28-Year-Old Black Entrepreneur Opens $5M Grocery Store in His Old Neighborhood

Donta Rose, a 28-year-old engineer and entrepreneur, has opened his own Grocery Outlet supermarket worth $5 million within a new development in his former neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Rose, who studied at Morgan State University, an HBCU, was originally one of the engineers working to design stores for Grocery Outlet, a California-based retailer that has over 400 stores nationwide. Upon seeing that his old neighborhood in the Sharswood section of North Philadelphia is on the list of future store locations, he thought it would be a great opportunity to own it.

That’s when Rose used his savings and secured a loan to buy a franchise of the store, he told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Being conveniently located in the neighborhood where he mostly grew up, he is very familiar with it. He was aware that before he opened the store, there has been no major supermarkets since the 1960s and the closest one was nearly a mile away.

Grocery Outlet offers name-brand and private-label products as well as dairy, bread, and fresh produce at low prices. Aside from making necessities more accessible to people in the community, the store also created new jobs.

Moreover, Rose, who started helping in his grandparents’ business when he was just 9 years old, is grateful to his family of entrepreneurs for supporting him in his endeavor.

“My name is on the loan and my face might be on there [in-store signage], but my mom is going to be with me,” he said. “My dad is actually out running right now to go pick up a safe for me and helping to grab stuff for the opening. My sisters are with me. So it’s definitely going to be a family business, for sure.”