A message from our General Manager

Dear community members,

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the store closures over the weekend in response to the city-issued Boil Water Advisory and provide some information to help shed light on our decision-making process. I first want to acknowledge that we take our role as a community resource seriously and understand that our closure posed challenges for community members seeking food and water. Our biggest priority remains serving our community safely, guided by our Global Ends, to be “central to a thriving and healthy community.”

As such, we did not make the decision to close lightly but ultimately decided that it was in the best interest of our staff, customers, and Members to err on the side of safety. Upon confirmation of the advisory first for the South End area, our Senior Team convened to assess the situation and ultimately decided to close first the South End store and shortly after, the Downtown Store upon confirmation that the advisory had been made city-wide. With over 300 staff and an average of 5,000 transactions a day across our stores, operating without potable water to properly clean, wash hands, and prepare food posed too significant a risk for us to justify remaining open.

That said, we understand the importance of accessibility, especially with the added challenge posed by the lack of access to safe drinking water, but in order to best serve our community, we needed to ensure that we could operate safely, and ultimately found that it was not possible given the advisory.

We understand that many other businesses remained open during this time and while we can’t speak for their decision-making process, we ultimately did what we felt was best for our community. It is a privilege to be your community-owned grocery store and we appreciate your patience and understanding during this time. We’re excited to get back to business today. As always, we hope that you will continue to share your thoughts and feedback with us as we work to continuously improve and best meet the needs of you, our Members and customers!

In cooperation,

John