Local Grand Union To Sell Its Stock And Close

By Steve Bigham

For nearly 50 years, the Grand Union has been something of a landmark in Newtown. For some, the Queen Street supermarket was considered one of the enduring symbols of Newtown’s center.

But the company will be no more after Saturday at 5 pm. The declining and bankrupt Grand Union has been selling its stores off to other companies. Many of the stores will re-open under different names. No one expressed interest in opening the Newtown store, however, and in the coming weeks the doors will close for good, it shelves empty and its freezers bare.

During the month of March, the store will hold a liquidation sale where all non-perishable items will be sold at reduced prices. The going-out-of-business sale begins Sunday at 7 am when the store re-opens under C&S Wholesale Grocers of Brattleboro, Vermont, which purchased many of the Grand Union stores.

Late last year, the bankrupt Grand Union Company of Wayne, New Jersey, conducted an auction of all the company’s assets and signed an agreement with C&S Wholesale Grocers for $301.8 million. C&S, which is Grand Union’s supplier, purchased 185 of the company’s 197 stores located in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

“This company is winding up shop. We will dissolve sometime at the end of January,” said Grand Union spokesman Mark Conlan last year, pointing to slumping sales throughout the Northeast.

The Queen Street store is scheduled to close for good April 1.

This week, the atmosphere in the aisles of the old store was somewhat gloomy as both employees and long-time customers came to realize the end was near. Signs outside announced the stores final closing on Saturday, while others signs thanked customers for their many years of patronage to the business.

Store manager Patty Chaffee admitted she still did not know what she and her co-workers were going to be doing after Saturday.

“We’re closing. That’s all I know,” she said. C&S Wholesale Grocers is taking over on Saturday at 5 pm to close out the books on the Grand Union company, which will no longer be in business. “We’re opening Sunday at 7 am. We don’t know what our hours are even going to be. They’re telling us the liquidation sale will start Sunday morning.”

The manager warned, howevver, that due to understaffing, not all items would be marked down right away. “We’re not staying all night Saturday,” she said. “As we get to things over the next couple of weeks there will be changes in prices.”

Justine Sumple has been shopping at the Grand Union for more than 12 years. She and her two children shopped there for the final time Wednesday afternoon.

“I’ve always shopped here because it’s smaller and I knew where everything was,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to find somewhere else to shop.”

It seemed everyone who came in at mid-week wanted to know what the future of the store was going to be.

“All day people have been asking ‘is the store closing? When are you closing?’” said Liz Koestner, a part-time clerk at the customer service desk. “I just say I don’t know, because I don’t.”

What the employees of Grand Union do know is that they will be out of a job in the near future.

“Everybody’s kind of hanging in there ‘til the end,” Ms Chaffee said. “The liquidation crew that comes in will ultimately decide who goes first and who will be kept around until the very end.”

The store manager said the Grand Union was always good to her during her 31 years with the company. However, in the end, the store has turned its back on its workers.

“I even lost my pension because I’m in the non-union area. When they went bankrupt they cancelled the pension for everybody that hadn’t been in for five years. I’ve worked for five years and got absolutely nothing. I’ve been in five years just this month, but they stopped it in October. I lost five years of work and I have no pension to show for it,” she said.

The Grand Union in Newtown currently employs 18 full-timers and 20 part-timers.

C&S Wholesale planned to sell off 90 of the stores to six retail partners – Shaws, Topps, Hanaford, Stop and Shop, Pathmark, and Price Shopper. Another 90 stores, including the Newtown store, were to remain the property of C&S and will operate under the corporate name, “GU Markets, LLC.” Of course, it is now clear that the Newtown store will never re-open.

Shaws Supermarket has purchased a number of the Grand Union stores in Western Connecticut, including ones in Southbury, Darien, Ridgefield, and New Canaan. The Grand Unions located in Danbury and Trumbull appear to be in the same boat as the Newtown store.

This week, Grand Union issued a statement explaining the situation to all town mayors, first selectmen, and chief elected officials in towns where it owns stores.

Grand Union once owned more than 900 stores from Florida to Canada and west to Texas. It sought bankruptcy protection in 1995 and again in 1998. It emerged from bankruptcy protection in August 1998, but has since continued to lose money. In the quarter ending back in July, the company reported losing nearly $51.7 million as sales fell 4 percent to $658 million from $687 million a year earlier. Same-store sales declined 2.7 percent.

The company has about 13,000 employees and already announced layoffs twice this year to cut costs.

Some Newtown residents say they will miss the small town feel that Newtown’s Grand Union has provided for more than 50 years if the store closes down.

“I still go other places sometimes, but I do most of my shopping here,” said Newtown resident Elaine Sullivan. “I like the Grand Union’s produce. It’s packaged prettier elsewhere, but the prices and the quality I always find better, fresh fruits especially.”

Grand Union shoppers say they can find things more easily at the Queen Street supermarket, too. The older shoppers especially like that.

For years, the store thrived thanks to loyal customers, good customer service, reasonable prices, and no gimmicks.

“Everything is straight up here. What you see is what you get,” noted deli manager Mike Calabrese last year.

Last year’s rumors of a Grand Union closing were soon followed by rumors that Big Y planned to close up shop after an up and down first year. Both rumors proved untrue, although the fate of Grand Union in Newtown is now sealed.

Grand Union opened in Newtown in 1957.

Many of the Grand Union employees are union members.