The naysayers were wrong. The co-op hopes to increase its owner membership to 10,000 by 2002. We have many families, seniors, couples, singles-membership spanning the generations who come here from all over southeastern Wisconsin and the Madison area. Anyone can shop at the Outpost-membership has not been a prerequisite since 1979. Membership applications are available at both stores.
Members receive owner bonus buys, discounts on workshops and coupons for other businesses.
We chose to open our second store in Wauwatosa to be closer to the western suburbs and near our Madison customers. Milwaukee did not embrace the initial attempt to open a food co-op. One year before the advent of the Outpost, some of the original Outpost creators opened Kane Street Co-op at 1158 E. Kane Place. Mismanagement and anarchy hampered the potential of success for the first co-op venture, according to an article in the Bugle American , Wisconsin's alternative newspaper published in the 1970s. Kane Street Co-op's offshoot, the first Outpost, outgrew its initial home in only one year.