A new grocery store will bring West African and Southeast Asian foods and ingredients — plus staple items — to Madison's east side. Gooh (pronounced "go-oh") Grocery held its soft opening this past Sunday, January 14.
“Just like when you are ‘going’ you say ‘go.’ And when you are surprised, you say ‘oh!’ ‘Go-oh,’” says Samba Baldeh. The name means “one” in the Senegambian Fulani language. Baldeh, the state representative for the 48th Assembly District, co-owns Gooh with Jerreh Kujabi, a network engineer for the Sun Prairie Area School District.
The idea that would become Gooh began almost a decade ago, when Baldeh and Kujabi noticed a lack of ethnic cuisine in Madison despite an influx of residents from diverse backgrounds. Their first instinct was to open a restaurant. They ran an African food kiosk in the West Towne Mall for a year, but stepped back in light of the long commute from the East Side and rising rent costs. They then considered a coffee shop, but realized they were more interested in the food part of the idea. After all, says Baldeh, “what we eat is a good contributor to our health, or lack of it.”
They identified a food desert near E. Washington Avenue in Baldeh’s State Assembly District, and found a suitable site for a grocery store in the former Visions strip club, which closed in 2020. The area of the grocery is around 3,000 square feet, according to a Wisconsin State Journal article. But not wanting to waste an inch of space, they were able to convert the second floor of the building into four apartments. “It was important also that we contributed to housing,” Baldeh says.
The project was not without its stumbling blocks. Baldeh says a major challenge was a complete overhaul of the electrical system. The original building was constructed in the late ‘40s as a casino. And the electrical demands of a strip club proved far different from those of a grocery store. Allowances had to be made for walls of refrigerators and freezers, as well as the upstairs residences.
The winter weather presented a serious threat to Sunday’s soft opening. On Friday, January 12, Baldeh was busy stocking shelves with over a thousand items. Several of the people who would have helped him were unable to venture out in the snow.
By Sunday, the skies cleared and the soft opening went on without a hitch. Two of the first shoppers included Dr. Roxie Hentz, founding Executive Director at CEOs of Tomorrow, a youth entrepreneurship group, and Dr. Martha Stacker, a Dane County Division Administrator for Children, Youth & Families. Drs. Hentz and Stacker accompanied Baldeh, along with Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and other Madison residents, on a trip to Madison’s sister city, Kanifing, in The Gambia in November 2022.
The shelves at Gooh contain a mix of staples like black beans and baking soda, and ethnic ingredients like fufu flour.
Photo by Jess Miller
“Through food is how we connect with different cultures,” said Hentz, perusing a shelf stocked with fufu flour. “This [store] is a great way for us to strengthen our connections through food. We’re excited to be able to experiment.”
“It’s nice to be able to come into a store, and see things that you’ve experienced, and say ‘Oh I’ve had that!' and take it home," Stacker adds.
In addition to staple items like bread, milk and eggs, the grocery features a variety of West African and Hmong products, reflecting the demographics of the community it serves. These items include African and Asian seasonings, different varieties of rice and couscous, and gallon-size jugs of palm oil. “Many West African people eat palm oil,” says Baldeh. “Many Americans don’t. The people who stop by always ask me ‘what is this?’ The Africans would run towards it.”
Many of the more exotic products were sourced from out of state, but Baldeh is working closely with local producers to round out the store’s stock. Shoppers will be able to purchase locally grown vegetables; beef, lamb and goat from local livestock farmers; and familiar local favorites like Greenbush donuts. Baldeh is also hoping to work more closely with the local Hmong population and groups like the culinary school at Madison College to cement Gooh as a fixture of the community.
Though a grand opening is still in the works — the owners are waiting for a day that lines up with Mayor Rhodes-Conway’s schedule and are hopeful that Governor Evers will be able to attend as well — Gooh is officially open for business.
Jess Miller is an editorial intern for Madison Magazine.
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