From a small window in his front office, Dimitrios Drossos, second-generation owner of Fresh Market Place on the Northwest Side of Chicago, has a direct view of the checkout lanes, where more and more often he’s watching customers nervously hesitate over their carts, deciding at the last moment to hand back a single avocado or a bunch of cilantro.

The culprit, he’s learned, is almost certainly an issue with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Customers who merely months ago shopped with confidence, knowing that their Link or EBT cards held enough money, now count cents.

“It breaks my heart,” Drossos told the Tribune on a recent afternoon. “I can’t sit here (in my office) because if I see a customer like that, often a mom with a couple kids, I’ll break down. I’ll just tell them to take it, but how many times can I do that?”

Hundreds of longtime customers of Fresh Market Place have been kicked off SNAP after President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy law, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” added newer, stricter work requirements for the program’s recipients in February.

In Illinois, the implications threaten not only individual households but also the viability of the Chicago area’s independent authorized SNAP retailers.

At Fresh Market Place, 25% of the customer base relies on SNAP.

“The big guys are a little different, but we literally run on penny margins sometimes. And when that much of your clientele is relying on a government resource to come in and shop … we feel it deeply,” Drossos said.

Before the bill was signed last year, adults aged 18 to 54 were required to work, volunteer or enlist in a training program for 20 hours a week, totaling 80 hours a month, while anyone living in a household with a dependent child under age 18 was exempt. Now, those requirements apply to adults 18 to 64 who don’t have dependents under the age of 14.

As of July 1, more than 147,000 people no longer qualify for SNAP, according to data from the Illinois Department of Health Services.

“This does not include the thousands of individuals who will be losing their benefits based on the federal changes to noncitizen SNAP eligibility,” IDPH said in a statement to the Tribune in July.

If the percentage of customers using SNAP to buy groceries at Fresh Market Place gets smaller, the consequences for Drossos’ store could be dire.

The revenue lost to SNAP-related customer base reductions could have already paid for several store improvements, such as fixing a broken intercom speaker with an incessant buzzing sound, Drossos added. But the priority now is making sure there is a financial safety net for the employees.

SNAP was also disrupted during a government shutdown that stretched from November to December. The lag in benefits forced millions of families to make do with small collections from food banks or the generosity of restaurants.

The store was noticeably emptier during that time, and then again in February when the new SNAP work requirements took effect. Foot traffic has yet to return to levels seen before those changes, Drossos said.

Drossos said he realized then that if SNAP folds or gets cut, “the store would have to shut down.”

Man-Yee Lee, spokesperson for the Greater Chicago Depository, said the food pantry also saw record numbers in those time frames, and still does.

“It’s not surprising if you’re talking about food costs — grocery prices have risen 21% from 2020 to 2025 in the last five years,” Lee said.

The organization has been tracking issues related to SNAP for decades and understands recipients’ shopping patterns.

“Most of the people that come to our pantry say, ‘We don’t want to be here. We just don’t have any more resources to put food on the table,’” Lee said.

According to data compiled by the Greater Chicago Food Depository, 1 in 4 people in Cook County is facing food insecurity, which is defined as someone not knowing where their next meal will come from.

Nationally, SNAP participation dropped by more than 4.7 million people due to implementation of the Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025 to March 2026, a 10% decrease. The drop represents the steepest decline in participation in nearly three decades.

A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services said SNAP won’t be going anywhere in Illinois and that the state is trying to keep more people on it, but navigating the federal policy changes will be a challenge for years to come.

“States have always been tasked with administering SNAP using federal eligibility rules, but the new federal requirements make it an even more complicated process,” the IDHS spokesperson said in a statement to the Tribune.

The state recently introduced an initiative called FRESH to help families buy groceries if they’ve experienced a loss or reduction of SNAP benefits on or after May 1. Individuals do not need to apply and eligible groups will automatically receive a one-time $400 cash deposit to their Link/EBT cards.

Melody Winston, senior executive of Living Fresh Market in Forest Park, was glad to see some reprieve for her customers — and for her store.

Money funneled through SNAP is a type of predictable cash flow, explained Winston. Since benefits are distributed monthly and typically spent fairly quickly, independent grocers experience a reliable surge in revenue right after varying issuance dates. Any type of financial assistance helps both consumers and businesses, she said.

“What we’re dealing with is really serious, and I’m hoping that there are some changes that are going to happen pretty quickly in order to bail out this industry,” Winston said. “We know that the automobile industry gets bailed out, the airlines get bailed out. What about the grocery industry?”

In Illinois alone, there were more than 9,400 authorized SNAP retailers as of fiscal year 2024, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The impact of new work requirements was felt almost immediately at Fresh Living Market in February, when thousands started getting kicked off SNAP.

“We’re looking at how much foot traffic comes through the door, we look at the average basket size … those numbers are right in front of you and we watch because we need to know and be able to anticipate how our inventory is flowing and how much we need to purchase,” Winston explained. “So when you see a dip of a couple thousand dollars in a day, it’s alarming.”

One-third of Living Fresh Market’s weekly revenue comes from SNAP, according to data reviewed by the Tribune. Winston said the store’s SNAP customers vary from senior citizens, students in college, single parents to families and joint families living under one roof.

Winston is trying to collaborate with policymakers to reach more people who qualify for SNAP but lack the resources and information to apply.

Folks working in the emergency food space are constantly looking for ways to increase partnerships in the community and often turn up at Chicago public libraries, food pantries and other social service agencies with a clipboard in hand, said Joann Montes, benefits enrollment specialist with the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Montes said her team anticipates even more Illinoisans will get kicked off the program in the coming months. And some people who have been removed from the program remain unaware of their eligibility to re-enroll, she added.

“We’ve found that there’s a lack of information, lack of knowledge, and there’s fear too,” Montes said.

That’s a topic that comes up frequently for Drossos and Clarissa Reyes at Fresh Market Place. Reyes said she’s personally heard from locals in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood who say they’re “afraid” of going to a social service agency for assistance.

“I heard a customer recently telling another woman who was about to go somewhere to ask for help with SNAP — she said, ‘No, no, don’t go because ICE is going to be there grabbing people.’”

Reyes, who was raised in the neighborhood, noted that the previous fall stood out as one of the most challenging periods for residents shopping at Fresh Market Place, when shoppers had to contend with both reduced SNAP benefits and the persistent anxiety surrounding federal immigration sweeps under Operation Midway Blitz. Reyes said locals were spending less time grocery shopping, exacerbating financial woes for the store, too.

Nearly nine months later, that anxiety has barred many from either applying for SNAP or finding resources to submit work exemptions.

“A lot of people are afraid to ask for help because they don’t know if you’re going to send them in the wrong direction. There’s a barrier even for asking for help right now because people don’t trust the government,” Drossos said.

Like other independent grocers, Liz Abunaw, owner of Forty Acres Fresh Market in the Austin neighborhood, keeps a close eye on her sales numbers.

“If you cut benefits, it does impact our potential because that lowers the dollars spent in the trade area, so there’s less dollars for us to go for and we’re then competing even harder for the dollars that are here,” Abunaw said. “There is a ripple effect.”

Abunaw said revenue from SNAP varies month to month, ranging anywhere from 10% to 20%.

“I personally don’t think we’re getting the share of SNAP dollars that’s available in the neighborhood and that could just be because we haven’t attracted those numbers yet,” she said, noting that her store has only been open for less than a year.

Forty Acres has a nutrition corner at the front of the store across from the checkout lanes, a program in partnership with Foodsmart, a national tele-nutrition and food care platform. A staff member is typically onsite to offer customers nutrition guidance, recipe cards tailored to seasonal produce and information on SNAP.

Abunaw is still figuring out how to draw more people to the desk, but is hoping to gain more local customers following recent store closures on the South and West Side.

Last month, Yellow Banana-operated Save A Lot shuttered all seven of its Chicago locations.

Save A Lot spokesperson Sarah Griffin said “dramatic cuts to SNAP benefits have severely impacted these stores,” pushing the discount grocer to a point of no return.

“We noted a 26% drop in SNAP funds over just the last few months,” Griffin told the Tribune, noting that a “significant number” of customers in the Auburn Gresham, Garfield Park and West Lawn neighborhoods were SNAP recipients.

Griffin said talks are ongoing to possibly reopen Save A Lot in the future.

Peter Strazzabosco of the city’s Department of Planning and Development confirmed those plans, saying, “We continue to discuss opportunities to reopen the stores either with existing or new operators or suppliers.” A time frame was not provided.

In the meantime, the closures worsen food access issues in an area with an existing shortage of grocery store options.

But to help lessen the immediate impact of the Save A Lot closures, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced a partnership between United Way of Metropolitan Chicago and Lyft to provide free round-trip rides to grocery stores in the city.

In an email to the Tribune, the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago announced details of the initiative, specifying that the ride-share company will be providing $25,000 to allow 211 Metro Chicago to distribute 1,000 Lyft codes valued at $25 each.

The program is available for seniors age 60 and older who live in specific ZIP codes in the neighborhoods of Auburn Gresham, Englewood, South Chicago, South Shore, West Garfield Park, West Lawn and West Pullman (60624, 60629, 60621, 60649, 60617, 60643, 60628, 60619, 60620). Eligible residents may call up to two times for a total value of $50. The initiative is slated to run this month with an exact launch date to be announced soon.

Over in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood at Fresh Market Place, Drossos tries to keep the prices as low as possible so customers who’ve lost SNAP can get by.

But to keep his business afloat, Drossos is meticulous about stocking meat items that won’t be wasted and partners with local growers to carry specialty Mexican herbs without cutting a profit to a middleman. Most recently, Fresh Market Place had a bin of papalo, a pungent leafy herb grown by a local in his backyard.

Reyes, general manager at Fresh Market Place, rose through the ranks first as a cashier when she was younger. She relates to the clientele deeply, and knows that most of them live within walking distance from the store.

When she and Drossos are setting prices for things like avocados and cactus leaves, they bear in mind who will need to be able to afford it.

She often sees them quickly calculating their EBT balance at the checkout.

“It hurts me to see that … I grew up watching them buy groceries, and I can just guess what they’re going to make with those ingredients,” Reyes said. “There is only so much we can do to make sure they keep coming back like they always have.”

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