A shopping center lot that sat empty in Pittsburg since 2019 has new life: Cielo Supermarket, a family-owned Hispanic grocery store, has opened at the Highlands Square Shopping Center, bringing about 100 jobs and a taqueria to a site residents had come to call a food desert.
The store fills the space once occupied by a Raley's and Food Source, which closed in 2019 and left the shopping center without a grocery anchor for years, according to CBS News. Owner Hector Gomez said Cielo is meant to be more than a quick stop — he described it as a destination grocery store, and said the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
Cielo is the second location for the Gomez family, which opened its first grocery store in Antioch about five years ago, in 2021. The family says it plans to keep expanding with more local grocery stores across the Bay Area, though no specific future sites or timeline have been announced. The name Cielo means heaven, according to the report.
A Taqueria Built Into the Grocery Aisles
Inside, Cielo also houses Cocina de Lupita, the store's own taqueria, serving burritos, tacos, carnitas and chicharrónes. The combination of grocery and prepared food reflects the kind of one-stop shopping Gomez said he wants Cielo to offer neighborhood shoppers rather than just a place to grab a few items.
For Julie Aquilina, a Pittsburg resident of nearly 30 years, the opening means she will finally have a grocery store five minutes from home. She said she's thankful for Cielo and open to trying new things, adding that Pittsburg is a great town with a very diverse community.
City Incentives Helped Bring the Store to Life
The opening didn't happen without help from City Hall. The Pittsburg City Council approved a $120,000 incentive program in 2025 to help bring Cielo to the long-vacant site, including an almost $78,000 credit toward building permit fees, per the same CBS report.
The push to fill the gap fits into a wider pattern across California, where an estimated 3 million residents live in communities without reliable access to fresh produce, according to NextGen Policy. The organization notes that small and mid-sized grocers face significant barriers to opening or expanding stores in underserved communities, a dynamic Pittsburg's incentive package appears designed to counter.
Those barriers can outlast a store's closing entirely. NextGen Policy points to a Safeway in Vallejo that reportedly shut down under terms preventing another grocery store from moving into the space for 15 years, an example of how vacant grocery sites can linger far longer than shoppers expect. Pittsburg's own seven-year gap at Highlands Square shows how long a neighborhood can go without a full-service option once one disappears.
