PAGEDALE 鈥 The owner of the local grocery store chain Fields Foods said he is in talks to sell all five locations to an employee ownership group.
Owner Chris Goodson said the stores may not continue to be branded as Fields Foods.
The news comes in the wake of Fields Foods鈥 Pagedale location abruptly closing on Tuesday, less than half a year after its grand opening.
Fields鈥 other four locations, in St. 亚洲无码鈥 Lafayette Square, Downtown, Clayton-Tamm and Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhoods, have remained open with limited inventory, which Goodson attributed to the stores remerchandising, rebranding and restocking.
Goodson said the Pagedale store, in a part of St. 亚洲无码 County with few other grocers, will be part of the sale to the employees.
鈥淧agedale 100% is a good grocery store,鈥 Goodson said. 鈥淭he grocery store model in food deserts may need to look a little different.鈥
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Some Fields Foods employees said they couldn鈥檛 talk about a change in ownership. Others said they weren鈥檛 aware of such a plan.
Goodson said he has been in talks with the employee-led group for a few months now.
Community nonprofit Beyond Housing is the Pagedale store鈥檚 landlord. The nonprofit developed multiple buildings at that corner into something of a Pagedale town center, including a bank, a movie theater, food hall and gym. The grocery store is an anchor to the development.
Chris Krehmeyer, CEO of Beyond Housing, said he was disappointed that the Fields Foods here did not live up to what the community had initially anticipated when it opened in .
He said he is confident a grocery store will open in the building, but a new owner had not, as of Thursday, committed to restarting a store there.
He cited the success of the Save-A-Lot, the store that preceded Fields Foods and closed in 2021 after serving the community for a decade.
鈥淭his community deserves a good grocery store,鈥 Krehmeyer said. 鈥淚t can be a successful place. ... We know the community will support a grocery store here.鈥
Krehmeyer said the Save-A-Lot was the first grocery store in the area in decades.
Pagedale residents said this week that they really liked having a local grocery store, but Fields Foods was expensive and not well stocked.
Justin Griffin and his family live behind the Fields Foods in Pagedale. He said they stopped shopping there, and opted for the Walmart in Maplewood instead.
鈥淚 bought one thing from (Fields Foods) the other day because I was making food and needed something. The price was so high I almost didn鈥檛 want to give them money but I needed the food,鈥 he said.
His neighbor, Patricia Nelson, said she was sad to see the store close so quickly.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great as an accessible store,鈥 Nelson said. 鈥淚 think it helps people who don鈥檛 have transport to other stores.鈥
The neighborhood, which Nelson said was an older middle-class area, didn鈥檛 seem to take to the store. She said it lacked the high-quality organic food she usually shops for.
Resident Angelo Simpson said he complained to workers about the prices. Management told him it would change, but Simpson said it never did. Now he and his family instead go to the Schnucks in University City.
鈥淚t鈥檚 in a good location. They got the right neighborhood,鈥 Simpson said. 鈥淭hey just got to get it together.鈥
Faye Millett, Pagedale鈥檚 interim mayor, said that she did not know any more about the store鈥檚 future than what she read on social media.
鈥淚 just know that they are revamping and starting over,鈥 Millett said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to get new people to run it.鈥
Like others, Millett and her family shopped at Fields Foods, but eventually, prices became too high and stocked inventory became too low.
鈥淚t got to the point where there was nothing on the shelves,鈥 she said, something she noticed about a month ago.
Millett said she wants a grocery store in Pagedale, whether it be Fields Foods or not.
鈥淲e have nothing, no other stores,鈥 she said. 鈥淥therwise we have to go to another municipality and give them our tax dollars. 鈥 I don鈥檛 care who comes as long as we got a grocery store we can go to.鈥
Goodson, a former president of the St. 亚洲无码 Board of Police Commissioners and a former member of the St. 亚洲无码 Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, said that although he is sad to let go of his Fields Foods stores, he is eager to continue to focus on his passion 鈥 revitalizing communities and redeveloping blighted areas.