After many years as a USDA-designated “food desert,” the drought in Ambler is finally over, writes Dutch Godshalk for the Ambler Gazette.

Weavers Way Ambler, the borough’s much-anticipated grocery store, will finally open its doors next month.

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Inhabiting the once-forlorn Bottom Dollar Food building at 217 E. Butler Ave., the store’s Oct. 27-29 grand opening celebration will mark the culmination of a years-in-the-making, communitywide effort.

Once known as the Ambler Food Co-op, the grassroots movement that made Weavers Way Ambler possible was born of the simple desire for an in-town food market — a grocery store residents could conceivably walk to.

To an outsider, this may seem like a small problem, and its solution may seem obvious: Wait long enough, and, sooner or later, a grocery store will open. The thing is, people did wait. And stores did open. But then they’d close again — sometimes quickly.

From the long-gone A&P and Acme stores, to, most recently, the short-lived Bottom Dollar, many grocers have come and gone over the years. People almost came to expect it. For many Ambler residents, grocery stores themselves seemed as perishable as the goods they sold.

For Weavers Way, a cooperative with roots reaching back to 1972, the Ambler location (which was first announced Nov. 1, 2016) will be the third — and largest — full-service grocery store for the slow-growing organization.

“It’s not large for a food co-op,” Roesser said of the Ambler location, but “it’s large for us. It’s going to be about twice the size of our Chestnut Hill store. Our Chestnut Hill store has all the departments that this store has, but it’s just smaller.”

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