What if you had to take three city buses on a half-day round trip to buy groceries? Burnell Cotlon’s neighborhood, New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, was in just that situation.

Cotlon was born and raised in the L9, as it’s called, and except for a stint with the U.S. Army in Germany, he lived there his whole life. After Hurricane Katrina, he realized his neighborhood was a food desert—there were no grocery stores, and chains didn’t think they could make enough profits to move in. So he decided he was going to build an oasis.

Describing himself as “an average guy with above average dreams,” Cotlon put his life savings into opening a grocery store, the Lower Ninth Ward Market. I spoke