Earth Fare reopened its Saint Johns grocery 5 months ago. Now it's closing for good (again)

Teresa Stepzinski, Florida Times-Union
4 min read
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Five months after reopening, Earth Fare Saint Johns, at 120 Shops Blvd. at the Shoppes of St Johns Parkway, is closing permanently. The natural and organic specialty food grocery will close Feb. 13, a store manager and employees told The Times-Union.
Five months after reopening, Earth Fare Saint Johns, at 120 Shops Blvd. at the Shoppes of St Johns Parkway, is closing permanently. The natural and organic specialty food grocery will close Feb. 13, a store manager and employees told The Times-Union.

SAINT JOHNS | Five months after reopening, Earth Fare is closing, leaving residents to search out another specialty natural and organic food grocer.

The store is expected to close its doors Feb. 13, a manager and multiple employees told the Times-Union as customers trickled in Monday to take advantage of the grocery's 20 percent off going-out-of-business sale.

Except for the meat, seafood, deli and bakery cases that were stripped bare, canned goods, milk, cheese and other dairy products still filled store shelves as did staples such as cereal and flour as well as health and hygiene items.

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Laurie Aker, marketing director for Earth Fare, offered no details but confirmed in an email to The Times-Union that the Saint Johns store was closing permanently.

Signs at Earth Fare advertise 20 percent discounts on foods and other goods at the store as part of its liquidation sale.
Signs at Earth Fare advertise 20 percent discounts on foods and other goods at the store as part of its liquidation sale.

“Despite the hard work of our team and our efforts to improve the performance of this store, challenges related to its physical location proved too difficult to overcome," Aker said.

The decision to close wasn't taken lightly, Aker said.

"The decision to close a store is something we take very seriously, particularly in light of the impact on our team members and customers in the affected communities," said Aker, noting Earth Fare appreciated the community's business.

She also said that Earth Fare "is growing" and the company hoped to have an opportunity to serve St. Johns County at another store in the future.

The company's timetable to close the Saint Johns store is toward the end of February, she said.

The store's pending closure was first reported Sunday by the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The Saint Johns store was among three Earth Fare locations in Northeast Florida that closed Feb. 25, 2020, following the Asheville, N.C.-based chain's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier that month. The other area stores were at 11901 Atlantic Blvd. at Atlantic North shopping center and 11700 San Jose Blvd. at Mandarin South Shopping Center.

Earth Fare opened its Atlantic Boulevard store — the first in Jacksonville — in 2014. Stores in Mandarin (2017) and St. Johns (2019) followed.

The North Carolina-based supermarket chain had announced those closures and the start of inventory liquidation on Feb. 3, 2020. At that time, the company said that “continued challenges in the retail industry impeded the company’s progress as well as its ability to refinance its debt” after years of expanding the company’s number of stores.

Earth Fare reopened the Saint Johns store 18 months later on Aug. 18, 2021, in the same shopping center — off County Road 210 West in northern St. Johns County — where it originally opened in October 2019.

On Monday, a Saint Johns store manager who declined to give her name provided the Times-Union a copy of talking points about the store's pending closure.

According to the document, there were several challenges, including "geographic challenges and direct competition," within the area that ultimately led to the decision to close the Saint Johns store.

The company, according to the talking points, also plans to offer job opportunities for its employees to relocate to other Earth Fare stores.

The seafood, meat, deli and bakery cases were empty Monday afternoon at Earth Fare's Saint Johns store, where a liquidation sale is underway as the store prepares to close this month.
The seafood, meat, deli and bakery cases were empty Monday afternoon at Earth Fare's Saint Johns store, where a liquidation sale is underway as the store prepares to close this month.

Three customers at the store on Monday said that except for the first week that it reopened, the Saint Johns store seldom was busy.

Nonetheless, the closure is dismaying, they said.

Kathryn Robinson said she has shopped at the Saint Johns Earth Fare since it opened. Before that, she'd been a customer at the Mandarin store until it closed down in February 2020.

"My heart is broken. I mean, what a waste. Saint Johns is such an upscale area for markets and such. But then they're running their organics store out of town," Robinson said.

A sign outside Earth Fare's Saint Johns location advertises the store's liquidation sale. The store plans to close by mid-February just months after reopening.
A sign outside Earth Fare's Saint Johns location advertises the store's liquidation sale. The store plans to close by mid-February just months after reopening.

Robinson said she reluctantly will have to shop at Fresh Market once Earth Fare closes.

"I love Fresh Market for the fresh fruits and vegetables … but you cannot beat Earth Fare for the packaged goods or everything other than fresh," she said.

Robinson said she plans to stock up on canned goods and other items on sale.

The Saint Johns store is not listed on the Earth Fare website. However, it lists stores in Lady Lake, Ocala and Orlando.

Until it closes, employees said the Saint Johns store will be open normal hours from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Earth Fare closing Saint Johns grocery store 5 months after reopening

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