A Wake for Wade’s Supermarket

In the retail business, a store closing is an all too common event. Take Kroger pulling out of Lucky’s Market, causing it to close all but a handful of its stores before filing for bankruptcy.

In the independent grocery sector, store closures are an all too common event too: such as Fairway announcing Chapter 11 bankruptcy‚ although ShopRite/Wakefern may acquire some locations.

Unfortunately, WGB could write about an independent grocery store closing nearly every day somewhere in the country. But as someone who covers the industry and often reads the stories with a  jaded “is it newsworthy?” eye, it is easy to forget that all store closings are newsworthy, especially to the owners and the members of the community affected by the store’s closing.

Which is why the news over the weekend about community members in Christiansburg, Va., gathering to say goodbye to and express appreciation for Wade’s Supermarket, the last location of which had closed three weeks ago—a literal wake for a grocery store—caught my jaded eye.

The store’s parking lot was once again full as more than 100 community members congregated at the store one last time, according to local news reports. Former employees stood in front of the store for one last group photo.

Wade’s Supermarket had been a part of Christiansburg for 69 years, and owner Greg Wade was the third generation of his family to run the company. At its height, the company had seven supermarkets and 13 grocery stores. Christiansburg was the last store standing. In a Facebook post announcing the store’s closing, Wade thanked all the customers, employees and suppliers who had supported the company. The post garnered 572 comments and 872 shares.

The reasons a store fails are many, and in local media reports, Wade named the common reason of increasing competition but also the recent death of his father and his own extended illness that had kept him out of the store for eight months. But he didn’t go down without a fight.

This summer, he announced that he was reducing the size of Wade’s Supermarket and was focusing on its fresh offerings in deli, the hot food bar, fresh meats and the bakery. However, the downsizing wasn’t enough to keep the store open, and it closed for good on Jan. 5.

Then came the community goodbye, which not only shows how important a grocery store can be in knitting together a community, but also its role in how important a community is to a store. A store can’t survive without community support. But if the comments on the Facebook post are any indication, those in the community who supported Wade’s Supermarket really loved it. Too bad there weren’t more.