01
Why Cantaloupe
I read an article about Japanese muskmelons. These insanely pampered fruits where farmers prune each vine down to a single melon so it gets all the sweetness, all the nutrients, all the attention. They massage them into perfect spheres. They wrap them in paper hats to protect them from sunburn. One melon can sell for hundreds of dollars, and it arrives to the customer at the exact moment of peak ripeness.
I can't find a good cantaloupe at the grocery store.
That contrast stuck with me. We've figured out how to deliver a $600 melon across an ocean, timed to the day, but we haven't figured out how to get paper towels to apartment buildings without making everyone overpay at the bodega. Our most basic supply chains are built around the most complicated delivery problems. Semi trucks, distribution centers, retail markup after retail markup. All for stuff you use once and throw away.
Prospect Heights by the numbers
13,000
homes in Prospect Heights
1M
rolls of paper towels per year
25
semi trucks worth
That's a line of trucks stretching almost the entire length of Underhill Avenue, from Atlantic to Eastern Parkway. Just for paper towels.
What if we started small? One product, one neighborhood, one simple logistics problem. Clean up the supply chain. Reduce waste on an inherently wasteful product. Make our streets a little less congested. And then, once we've built the delivery network, work our way up to more complex products. The way those farmers work their way up to a perfect melon.
Start with the vine. Get the basics right. Build from there.
02
Why Underhill
If you've walked down Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights, you've seen the walls. What started as an abandoned lot after a laundromat fire has become Underhill Walls. A rotating open-air gallery that's been a neighborhood landmark for over a decade. It's one of the best things on the block. It's also a reminder of what happens when a space sits in limbo, caught between what a neighborhood needs and what a balance sheet says it's worth.
Right now, when we buy paper towels at the bodega, most of that money leaves the neighborhood immediately. It goes to a national brand, a national distributor, a national retailer. None of it comes back to Prospect Heights.
Get Cantaloupe is built on a different idea: that the money we spend on everyday essentials should circulate closer to home. That a delivery route through your neighborhood is worth more than a Prime membership. That buying power belongs to the people who actually live here.
The long-term dream, and I know it's a long-term dream, is to turn that kind of community investment into something physical. A public plaza in the heart of the neighborhood where you can eat your Radio Bakery croissant. Rotating art on the interior walls, the way the murals already rotate on the exterior ones. Free cultural programming upstairs. A space that proves what's possible when a neighborhood keeps its own money.
We're starting with paper towels.
But paper towels aren't the point.
03
About Me
I live in Prospect Heights with my family. I started Get Cantaloupe because I got tired of paying $5 for paper towels at the corner store and realized my neighbors were doing the same thing. The math didn't make sense. We're all overpaying for the same stuff, a few blocks apart from each other, when buying together would cost everyone less. So I'm doing something about it. Right now it's just me, a cart, and a walking route. That's the whole operation.
— Jordan