When it comes to office supplies, home improvement tools and Swedish furniture, East Palo Alto residents need not look farther than their own backyard. But when it comes to stocking up on basic essentials like bread, cereal and milk, they must drive to the next town.

Such is the reality of East Palo Alto, a city that has spent much time trying to live down a reputation of poverty and crime. Although big-box stores like Office Depot, Home Depot and Ikea have looked past that reputation to establish a presence in the city, the one business that residents have coveted for 20 years is a supermarket.

All the major U.S. chains have turned down East Palo Alto, some saying that the city of 30,000 people does not have the space required for a full- scale operation. Others argue that residents do not have the disposable income necessary to make a supermarket profitable.

So for two decades, locals have had little choice but to venture to the surrounding cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Redwood City to shop for groceries. In fact, East Palo Alto is the only city in San Mateo County that does not have a supermarket of its own, a slight that residents live with every day.

Rejection by big-name retailers is common among impoverished communities that yearn for a supermarket. Richard Walker, a professor of economic geography at UC Berkeley, said that supermarkets have historically tended to stay away from low-income regions. "This is a long-standing problem and you see it more (during) recessions," he said.

East Palo Alto's most recent attempt to attract a supermarket comes in response to residents who lobbied hard for fresh produce instead of Swedish furniture. Although Ikea ultimately won out, the city formed a supermarket task force in April 2002 and hired a developer, Blake Hunt Ventures of Danville, to seek out large-scale grocers.

So far, only two have come forward -- Mi Pueblo, a family-owned business based in San Jose, and Grupo Gigante, Mexico's third-largest retailer, which recently began opening stores in Southern California and is looking to penetrate the Northern California market. Meanwhile, national chains like Safeway and Albertson's have shied away from East Palo Alto altogether.

Brad Blake, chief executive officer of Blake Hunt Ventures, said that neither Mi Pueblo nor Grupo Gigante has made a commitment to East Palo Alto, but that the City Council has expressed a preference for Grupo Gigante. Also at issue is the 6-acre plot on the corner of Bay Road and University Avenue that the council has identified as a potential site for a supermarket. The land is owned by a nonprofit organization and the city is negotiating its purchase.

Whereas Latino businesses have shown a willingness to capitalize on East Palo Alto's growing ethnic population -- almost 59 percent of the residents are Latino, according to the 2000 Census -- national supermarket chains see little opportunity to make a profit.

For East Palo Alto residents, the only options within city borders are small corner markets, which charge more because they cannot afford to buy and sell in bulk the way supermarkets do.

City officials say the climate in East Palo Alto may be better for a supermarket now than in years past, especially with the added cache of Ikea and Home Depot. "As of late, we've had success in redevelopment and honed our skills in how the redevelopment process is done," City Manager Alvin James said.

In 1993, the city zeroed in on 140 acres of residential and commercial development, 30 of which were set aside for a retail complex that today includes Home Depot, Best Buy, Good Guys, Starbucks and Office Depot. The project, dubbed Gateway 101 because of its proximity to the 101 freeway exit ramp, later added an Ikea.

Another project, which began in 1999, involved transforming an area formerly known as Whiskey Gulch for its high concentration of liquor stores, bars and crime. Now the 22 acres, near the ramp on the west side of the freeway, is called University Circle and is home to three office towers and an upscale hotel. Families who lived in the 100-plus affordable housing units and those who worked for 12 nonprofit groups in Whiskey Gulch have all been relocated.

"Our whole economic development was a signal for change in attitude to businesses," said Wilson, the former city councilwoman. "We shop at other cities, but the reverse was not happening to us. Now those regional dollars are coming into our pot when for years, we were putting our regional dollars into someone else's pot."