The Connecticut Post reports on the closing of a Stop & Shop store in Greenwich, Connecticut, linking it to the opening a couple of years ago of a Wegmans in Harrison, New York, an “an easy drive for many in Greenwich.”
A spokesman for the Ahold Delhaize-owned chain confirmed the closing, saying that it was not meeting “financial expectations.” The spokesperson tells the Post that the “closure is not indicative of any future operational plans for Stop & Shop stores in Fairfield or Westchester counties.”
Local officials say they are looking for another supermarket chain to take over the space, which Stop & Shop will vacate in mid-June.
KC’s View:
Part of the problem with that store was that it is small and undistinguished – there’s no reason that a smartly run store with a strong specialty foods focus can’t make it there. I wouldn’t even describe the Stop & Shop as being in the mushy middle; it is just mushy.
This may be a problem that Stop & Shop eventually will face in Connecticut, where Wegmans has announced its plans for a new store in Norwalk. As I’ve written here before, it will be across the street from a Walmart (not a supercenter), a third of a mile from a Costco, less than a mile west of a Super Stop & Shop and a ShopRite in Norwalk, one mile from the Darien Trader Joe’s, less than two miles east of a not-so-super Stop & Shop in Darien, about two miles from the Darien Whole Foods, 3.8 miles from an independent grocer called Palmer’s, also in Darien, and 4.5 miles west of Stew Leonard’s in Norwalk.
I know and shop at all of those stores (some more than others). I live about 2.5 miles from the Norwalk Wegmans site. And in a lot of ways, I think those two Stop & Shop stores will be most vulnerable when Wegmans opens.
The post <strong>A Stop & Shop To Close, Apparently Falling Victim To Wegmans</strong> appeared first on MNB.
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