Nourish + Bloom Market today opened its newest location at Pittsburgh Yards, the 31-acre community development in Atlanta's historic Pittsburgh neighborhood. Built within a shipping container, the store is the first container-format store of its kind, a first-of-its-kind deployment of the company's AI-powered, 24/7 zero checkout grocery technology. The opening brings fresh food, everyday essentials, and a fully autonomous shopping experience to a community that has long faced limited access to quality grocery options.

At Nourish + Bloom Market, shoppers simply tap in, grab what they need, and go. A combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision, and smart sensors lets customers walk in, select their items, and leave without stopping to scan or wait in a checkout line. The store operates around the clock, carries fresh produce, meat, dairy, baked goods, prepared meals, and household essentials, and is staffed by team members on hand to assist. The market accepts SNAP and EBT benefits, reflecting the company's founding commitment to making healthy food accessible to everyone, not only those who can already reach it.

A Home in a Historic Community

The Pittsburgh neighborhood holds a singular place in Atlanta's history. Founded in 1883 by formerly enslaved people, it grew into one of the city's earliest and most vibrant centers of Black entrepreneurship and homeownership. Pittsburgh Yards continues that legacy. Once a 31-acre industrial and rail site, the property was acquired by a subsidiary of the  Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2006 and reopened in December 2020 as a community-driven development built to grow equitable career, entrepreneurship, and wealth-building opportunities for the neighborhood's residents. Set within the development's signature Container Courtyard, alongside a community of Black-owned retail and service businesses, the Nourish + Bloom Market container store anchors Pittsburgh Yards with a daily resource that residents can count on.

Advancing Atlanta's Food Access Goals

The opening advances the shared goals of the City of Atlanta and Invest Atlanta, which have made eliminating food deserts a priority through efforts such as Invest Atlanta's Grocery Store Initiative and the city's commitment to bringing fresh food within a half-mile of the vast majority of residents. Nourish + Bloom Market offers a private-sector model that meets that mission with technology, extending reliable, 24/7 access to fresh food in a neighborhood where it has been scarce, while creating local jobs and economic activity.

A Partner in the Beltline’s Smart City Vision

Nourish + Bloom Market has been a partner in the Atlanta Beltline’s Digital Inclusion and Smart Cities Initiative, which uses technology to address urban challenges including food access, connectivity, and wellness along the corridor. As the autonomous grocery component of that initiative, Nourish + Bloom demonstrated how zero checkout retail can serve communities directly. The Pittsburgh Yards location, near the Beltline, deepens that vision by placing a permanent, technology-forward market within reach of the residents the initiative was designed to serve.

Quotes

"Pittsburgh built itself on the belief that this community deserves to own its own future, and that belief still runs through every block," said Jilea Hemmings, CEO and Co-Founder of Nourish + Bloom Market. "We build and deploy zero checkout retail technology for the places people live, work, learn, and travel, and we are the only solution that leaves no one behind. Bringing that to Pittsburgh Yards, in a neighborhood that has waited far too long for reliable access to fresh food, is exactly why we started this company."

"For us, the technology was never the point. It was always about what the technology makes possible," said Jamie Hemmings, Co-Founder and President of Nourish + Bloom Market. "Building this store inside a container proves that a full AI-powered grocery experience can go almost anywhere, including the neighborhoods that have been told for too long that they were too hard to serve. Pittsburgh Yards shows what happens when you design for the community first."