Schnucks to shut three St. Louis-area locations

Next month, Schnuck Markets plans to close three underperforming stores in metropolitan St. Louis.

The regional grocer said Friday that its stores in St. Peters (100 Jungermann Road) and O’Fallon (1421 Mexico Loop Road East), Mo., and Edwardsville (2122 Troy Road), Ill., are scheduled to be shut on Sunday, Nov. 10. All of the combined 190 employees at the stores will be offered transfers to nearby locations, where they will retain their rate of pay.

Schnucks cited poor sales at the three stores, in part due to other nearby Schnucks locations. The St. Louis-based company said the St. Peters store is within three miles of two other Schnucks supermarkets, and the O’Fallon and Edwardsville stores are each less than a mile away from another Schnucks.

The company said it’s now seeking a tenant for the Edwardsville location, which it owns. The St. Peters and O’Fallon stores are leased. Pharmacy customers at all three stores will see signage in the coming days indicating the dates that their prescriptions will transfer to nearby Schnucks pharmacies.

“Our customers have overwhelmingly chosen to visit neighboring Schnucks stores much more frequently than these locations, and as difficult as it is to have to close a store, we simply cannot operate locations that are not profitable,” Schnucks Chairman and CEO Todd Schnuck said in a statement. “While these decisions are never easy, we are grateful that we are able to preserve our teammates’ jobs and pay, and grateful that our customers won’t have to travel far to visit us at other nearby Schnucks stores.”

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After the three closures, Schnucks will operate 82 stores in metro St. Louis and 112 overall in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa.

This year, Schnucks already has closed four stores — three of which it described as underperforming — as part of an ongoing effort to optimize its brick-and-mortar locations. The company said it shut its stores at 634 Berkshire Blvd. in East Alton, Ill. (Aug. 4); 10634 St. Charles Rock Rd. in St. Ann, Mo. (May 5); and 110 Carlyle Plaza Dr. in Belleville, Ill. (March 24), because they had poor sales or weren’t profitable. The chain’s store at 1275 North Truman Blvd. in Festus, Mo., closed on June 30 because the retailer wasn’t able to reach a lease renewal agreement.

Last fall, Schnucks boosted its store base after the company acquired 20 Shop ‘n Save locations in Missouri and Illinois, including one stand-alone pharmacy, from Supervalu Inc. Schnucks reopened the stores under its own banner last October October. During 2018, the retailer also opened stores in Warrenton and Maplewood, Mo., and closed two older stores in Rockford, Ill.

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