CTown Supermarket opens in South Scranton

Jim Lockwood, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·2 min read

Sep. 2—SCRANTON — A new grocery store in South Side that opens Friday fills a void from the departure of a former grocer there six years ago.

CTown Supermarket opens at 8 a.m. in the South Side Station shopping plaza at 1110 S. Washington Ave.

The grocery store occupies the spot of the former Weis Markets that closed in August 2016.

The supermarket once again provides a grocery option in a busy part of South Side and will create jobs, said Tom Pattison, president of the South Scranton Neighborhood Association. As an anchor in the South Side Station plaza, CTown enlivens that strip mall, he said.

"I'm hearing a lot of positive things about it. It's good to have something in there," Pattison said. "I went by there yesterday and it looked pretty good."

South Scranton had been considered a "food desert" under United States Department of Agriculture guidelines a few years ago for a lack of nutritious food options. Though the USDA no longer uses the term food desert, the concept made an impact.

The nonprofit United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which has led revitalization efforts in South Side, established the weekly South Side Farmer's Market in 2010 to help address a lack of local access to fresh, affordable food in the neighborhood.

"That (food desert) is language that we still use to describe the lack of nutritious food shopping options" in South Side, UNC President/CEO Lisa Durkin said. "As an agency, we try to fill that need with the South Side Farmer's Market, which is tremendously successful and does help fill the gap. But that market is open one day and certainly there are needs greater than that."

CTown's opening in South Side represents "great news for the neighborhood," Durkin said.

The 27,000-square-foot CTown in Scranton is the largest CTown store of parent firm Krasdale Foods Inc., the company said in an announcement.

Krasdale is a 114-year-old, family-owned business providing grocery distribution, merchandising and marketing to independent grocery store owners.

The CTown brand of "neighborhood supermarkets" began in New York City in 1975.

The New York-based Krasdale has spread throughout the Northeast and Florida, with store brands that include CTown, Bravo, Aim, Market Fresh, Shop Smart Food Markets and Stop 1 Food Mart.

Other CTown locations in Pennsylvania include Allentown, Bethlehem, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Reading and York.

"We simply cannot wait to welcome everyone to this beautiful store," said Jerry Marquez, owner of the Scranton CTown Supermarket. "This is a supermarket that all of Scranton deserves, a store that puts community first and which will offer the convenience, quality and familiarity that only a true neighborhood supermarket can provide."

emailto:Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5185; @jlockwoodTT on Twitter.