Grocery store to get new occupants
October 15, 2008
By Ed Farrell
Slightly more than a month after closing its doors, Snoqualmie’s only full-service supermarket has a new lessee, which has announced plans to reopen by mid-November.
Tyler Myers, CEO of The Myers Group, told The Star Tuesday that his firm intends on reopening the former Village Foods IGA on Snoqualmie Ridge as soon as possible.
“Our main focus right now is to get it open,” Myers said, “and getting to the community bread, milk and eggs.”
Myers said the tentative name for the new store will be The Ridge Supermarket, although he acknowledged that his firm is still considering other possible identifiers.
Myers said work has already begun modifying the 21,000-square-foot building to accommodate a wider variety of goods to offer its clientele.
“We’re extremely pleased that the supermarket will be reopening with a full inventory to serve the city,” said Bob Cole, economic development consultant for the city of Snoqualmie. “It’s very important to other Ridge merchants to have an active, successful grocery store there because it will act as a magnet and attract lots of people to that area.”
IGA Village Foods closed its doors in early September, after filing for bankruptcy protection in January.
Myers said he was not familiar with all the details regarding the previous occupant’s failure, but he understood “they just didn’t have the wherewithal to make it work. In the grocery business, the margins are so thin. But we’re the real deal. This is the business we’re in, and we love it.”
Myers said his firm has extensive experience working with smaller communities, such as Camano Island, and understands that meeting the needs of a community are critical to a market’s success.
“We’re offering a full-service, full-blown, first-class supermarket,” he said, “And I’m sure we’re going to be successful.”
Myers said the new market will carry an IGA affiliation, as did its predecessor, but aside from offering IGA brand goods, there will be little emphasis placed on the link with the past.
“We’re not going to play up the IGA banner to a great extent,” Myers said. “It will be our customers that will dictate to us what kind of store we are. We will be an IGA store, but only as far as to it being an advantage. What matters most is how we will take care of our customers, the prices we charge, and the variety of goods on our shelves, not the IGA banner.”
Myers said the new store will include an enhanced deli and meat offerings, an expanded produce department, additional checkout lanes “and a significant increase in the variety and quantity of all grocery and specialty products.”
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