In Mesa del Sol, a local grocery shop owner waits for the neighbors to come

In a community buzzing with the promise of growth, small business owner Kiki Salcido is learning how long it can take for that promise to reach his store.

Salcido is the owner of MyMarket, a small grocery store serving the master planned community of Mesa del Sol on the southern edge of Albuquerque. The store, which includes a coffee shop called K2 Brew, opened inside a nearly 6,000-square-foot space at 5700 University SE in 2023.

Two years later, Salcido’s journey has proven to be a bumpy ride.

“I know it takes a while for a new business to be noticeable,” Salcido said. “But it’s been hell. Definitely drained all my accounts.”

Feeling desperate, Salcido took to TikTok a little over a month ago to talk about the reality of being a small grocery store owner in a growing but young community — and to plead for help, ideas and support.

“I need your guys’ help to make this place successful,” Salcido said in the three-minute video, posted on Sept. 11.

Salcido went on to explain that before MyMarket, he was a commercial real estate broker and had been working to get a national grocery store chain to come to Mesa del Sol. They all declined, so Salcido decided to fill the need himself, motivated by the desire to become a developer and his faith in the development.

“I think it’s probably one of the coolest ideas here in New Mexico,” Salcido, a born and raised New Mexican, said in the video.

Spanning 12,900 acres surrounded by wide open spaces, Mesa Del Sol is one of the few remaining areas of Albuquerque yet to be fully developed. The developer’s vision of growth has been in the works for years, encapsulating the community with an air of potential that has attracted many homebuilders and businesses.

Today, Mesa del Sol has added roughly 706 houses and 330 apartments, housing around 2,150 residents, according to Steve Chavez, managing partner of MDS Investments, the master developer of Mesa del Sol.

Chavez said developers plan to build more than 500 single-family homes, 550 apartments, 230 build-to-rent houses, 61 condos, 500 military units and 330 affordable housing units over the next 30 months.

Companies like Netflix and Kairos Power have fueled Mesa del Sol’s development in recent years by establishing a presence in the community. Several other companies, like Maxeon Solar Technologies and Star Scientific Ltd., have also announced plans to set up shop in the community, though some have not yet come to fruition.

It was announcements like these that prompted Salcido to move forward with the market.

“I saw the writing on the wall and said, ‘This could be a huge opportunity,’” he said in the video.

And yet, the community’s growing numbers have not translated into foot traffic for Salcido, who panned the camera across an empty market in his September video.

“Those big grocery stores, they weren’t wrong,” Salcido said in the video. “There is not a lot of people out here.”

It is typical for national stores to hold off establishing locations until a development reaches between 4,000 and 5,000 residents, Chavez said.

Mesa del Sol is home to several successful small businesses, the developer said, but retail is a whole other ballgame that heavily relies on people living and working in the community.

Salcido agreed, adding that noticeably more traffic comes into MyMarket during construction projects or Netflix productions.

The area will see more activity in the coming months. MDS Investments has two purchase agreements in the works with a national fast-food restaurant and convenience store that Chavez said will be operational within 24 months.

A 550-unit apartment complex just across the street from MyMarket will also break ground at the end of this month, supporting about 200 construction workers over the next few years, Chavez said.

“The existing retail we have is at the cusp of really doing well because they have taken the chance to recognize the future growth, and they will see the increase of construction jobs in the next few months, as well as the increase in population,” Chavez said.

Salcido remains hopeful despite challenges that extend beyond the community’s gradual growth, he said. Learning the ins and outs of the grocery store business has also been a struggle, starting with the first week of business.

“Our opening week, there were so many problems and issues that I think we lost a lot of the buy-in from the community,” Salcido said.

Competing with established convenience stores in town, Salcido decided to make MyMarket more of a specialty store to offer people something unique and perhaps even worth driving to Mesa del Sol for, offering items like Tonnino’s yellowfin tuna belly and The Preservatory’s pink grapefruit and champagne preserve. But $70,000 worth of product going bad squashed that concept.

The store shifted to more conventional offerings, but it took months to rebuild and fill empty shelves, prompting some community members to ask if the store had closed, Salcido said.

The store is starting to stabilize, but the buying power that a new, small grocery store has is also an issue, Salcido said, giving the example of Coca-Cola only shipping to the business once a month.

With sometimes limited inventory, the owner said he’s discovered people have less grace for small businesses. One person left a one-star Google review of the market because an employee didn’t greet them when they walked in, Salcido said.

“I highly doubt that happens in Smith’s or Walgreens,” Salcido said.

Salcido would do some things differently, though. He said he wishes he had started marketing the business earlier and embraced a hands-on approach without a manager.

Getting more involved in the community was a suggestion that many commenters offered on Salcido’s TikTok, which has already made a difference in more ways than one.

Since posting the video, the store’s sales have increased “dramatically,” and people have driven from as far as Rio Rancho to support the business, Salcido said.

The owner is in discussions with the New Mexico Grocery Association to explore joining a co-op, which he said would give the store more buying power. He has also started exploring deeper community involvement through starting a book club, hosting movie nights and volunteering at local schools.

“I think the more I feed into the community, they’ll feed into me,” Salcido said, calling the support thus far “extremely motivational.”

Mesa del Sol leaders have also stopped by the market to encourage Salcido to keep going, he added.

Chavez’s message for small business owners in Mesa del Sol and entrepreneurs considering coming to the community is one of utter confidence, stating the community could one day grow close to 137,000 residents.

“It is the future growth of Albuquerque, and we are committed to providing a community that has a work, live and play environment that will be unmatched (by) what any other master planned community is doing in the state or even in the Southwest. The future is now,” Chavez said.

For Salcido, the future is still slightly unknown, but the present moment is looking more optimistic.

Just a few weeks ago, if you asked Salcido if he regretted opening a small grocery store at Mesa del Sol, the answer would have been yes, he said. But the support from the community and social media has provided a much-needed boost.

“I’m not one to ever be like, ‘Hey, I’m struggling.’ So for me to do a video like that — I thought I was going to get trolled, but for people to come in to support, now I don’t feel like I’m regretting it,” Salcido said. “I feel motivated and excited, and I do think it is just going to take some time. Ask me a few months from now whenever my bank account is negative again, but right now, I’m excited.”