The grocery-store chain Fresh & Easy will be closing all its stores in the coming weeks, according to the company.
The 54 Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California had been struggling for years just to break even, but now the company has begun the process of closing all its locations. This week, local stores in the chain have offered discounts of 20 to 30 percent off their goods.
“Over the last two years, we have been working hard to build a new Fresh & Easy,” states an email the company sent to customers on Oct. 22. “We thank you for shopping with us and bringing our products into your home…We encourage you to come in and get some of your Fresh & Easy favorites for the last time.”
Staff members at the Fresh & Easy location at 3300 Atlantic Ave. in the California Heights neighborhood on Wednesday said they were not sure when their store would be closing, but numerous signs outside the store, as well as empty shelves, made it clear the closure is imminent.
Emily Cox, a medic with a local ambulance company, was walking into the California Heights location with her work partner early Wednesday afternoon. She bemoaned the fact that the store would be closing because it provided a level of convenience in location and offerings.
“With my station being down the street, it kind of sucks because I like their already made foods,” Cox said. “So now I have to, like, make food.”
Mishay Hogan, who has been assistant manager at the California Heights location for about a year, has been with the company for four years. She found out about the closures the day before the news was announced in the media last week.
“It was a little discouraging,” Hogan said. “But I thought maybe it was an opportunity for something better.”
She said she had had a sense that the closures were impending because stock had been dwindling.
“A week prior [to the announcement], we started to have no meat,” she said. “And they were saying we were switching suppliers.”
Hogan said she is unsure of what the near future holds, in terms of her employment, but other workers have already begun the application process.
Raymond Koon, a Fresh & Easy team leader who has worked at the store since it opened four years ago, said he has applied for a similar position at another retail grocery store.
Like Hogan, Koon got the news last week.
“About a week ago, everyone was really talking about it, and my manager was kind of hinting at it a little bit,” Koon said. “So, we kind of had some sort of an idea, but not too much— not from, like, corporate, at least.”
Koon said he was “pretty upset” when he first found out. “My mood for work was kind of just shot,” he said. “Didn’t really want to be here. And then slowly [I] just started picking myself up. Got to move through it.”
Koon said his long-term plans may include following in his mother’s career path by applying to work in U.S. Customs.
Liliana Amado, a customer assistant, said she will likely use the loss of employment as a time to focus on her school work.
She explained that she got the news during her Oct. 22 shift in a rather surprising way.
“I started at 4am and started getting a lot of packages in— just boxes— boxes of packages,” Amado said. “We were wondering what it was, so we opened one, and it was just closing signs.”
