Oliver’s Market announced plans to open a fifth store in Santa Rosa, expanding the locally owned grocery chain while reinforcing its long-standing focus on local food and community partnerships. The new store will be located at Farmers Lane Plaza at 1501-1591 Farmers Lane, a shopping center near the junction of Highways 101 and 12. 

For Oliver’s, the move represents both growth and continuity.

Founded in 1988 by Steve Maass, the company began with a simple idea: build a grocery store where customers could find high-quality food and feel connected to their community. From those roots, the company has grown into one of Sonoma County’s best-known independent grocers, now employing around 1,000 people and operating stores in Cotati, Windsor and Santa Rosa. 

The planned Farmers Lane location will become the company’s fifth store and its third in Santa Rosa.

Company leaders say they have been searching for the right site for several years before settling on the Farmers Lane Plaza property. The shopping center, originally built in 1979, sits at a busy crossroads in east Santa Rosa and is already home to a variety of retail businesses and restaurants. 

Oliver’s executives say the new store will continue the brand’s emphasis on local sourcing, prepared foods and specialty grocery items.

The company has long promoted relationships with Sonoma County farmers, ranchers and food producers. According to Oliver’s, purchasing locally produced food has a multiplier effect on the regional economy, helping keep dollars circulating in the community and supporting local jobs. 

That emphasis has been part of the store’s identity since the beginning.

Founder Steve Maass first entered the food business decades ago selling produce from a roadside stand in San Francisco before establishing Oliver’s Market in Sonoma County. The original mission, according to the company, was to create a grocery store “where people would enjoy shopping,” with a focus on quality products, fair prices and community involvement. 

Over the years, Oliver’s has built a reputation for blending natural and conventional groceries with a strong selection of locally produced goods. The stores also feature extensive prepared food offerings, deli counters and specialty departments such as cheese, meat, seafood and wine. 

Today the company operates four locations: two in Santa Rosa, one in Windsor and one in Cotati. 

The addition of a fifth store comes at a time when the grocery industry is increasingly dominated by large national chains and online retailers. For many customers in Sonoma County, Oliver’s represents a rare example of a locally owned grocery business that has not only survived but expanded.

In recent years, the company has also transitioned to an employee-ownership model through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The change was designed to preserve the company’s local identity and reward the workers who helped build it. 

Details about the store’s opening timeline and construction schedule have not yet been finalized, but the announcement has already generated interest among residents and shoppers familiar with the brand.

For Oliver’s, the expansion marks another step in a decades-long effort to maintain a locally rooted alternative to corporate grocery chains.

And for Santa Rosa shoppers, it means one more place to pick up locally grown produce, Sonoma County wines and the familiar mix of neighborhood grocery staples that have helped make Oliver’s a fixture of the North Bay food scene.