Friday, September 12, 2014

Jerry-rigged

Buy a location, close a location:
The new owner of two Rainbow Foods stores has decided to close them, four months after picking them up in a multicompany, 27-store deal that reshaped the Twin Cities grocery scene.

Jerry’s Enterprises Inc. notified workers and city officials that it will close the stores at 1660 S. Robert St. in West St. Paul and 2919 26th Av. S. in Minneapolis in early November.

Both stores employ about 25 full-time workers and another 60 or so part-timers.

Jerry’s, an Edina-based operator of about 40 stores in Minnesota and Florida, owns other grocery stores under the Cub Foods name next to both locations. A spokesman for Jerry’s confirmed the decision but declined to comment further.
This was an easy decision for Jerry's -- it's often cheaper and a better business decision to buy out and close a competitor's location than it is to let another party enter the market. HyVee is starting to enter the Twin Cities grocery market and certainly would have been interested in these locations had they been available.

1 comment:

3john2 said...

I'm not in any Fantasy Grocery League, but I've been expecting this announcement re the Robert St. location for awhile. This is about a mile from my house and in the all the articles about the big chain moves the last two months there has been nothing mentioned about this location until now. But Jerry's owns the Cub one mile south on Robert, and this Rainbow is flanked on either side by a Walmart with grocery and a Super-Target. ALDI's is just a little further past the Cub. Additionally, Robert St. is about to undergo a major reconstruction over the next three years that will impact access.

I liked this place ok; the deli was good and they carried some Wisconsin-brewed soft drinks you don't usually see. I won't mourn, but it will be interesting to see what moves into the space.