Closing leaves neighborhood void

It was more than just any old grocery store.

For dozens of longtime shoppers, the Safeway at Third Avenue and Maple Street felt like a second home – a place where the aisles of food became as familiar as the shoppers’ own cupboards, a gathering spot where all the checkers knew them by name.

Saturday was a sad day for the regulars. After 50 years, the landmark store near downtown Spokane dimmed the lights, turned off the Safeway sign and closed its doors forever.

“I feel like I’m losing a good friend,” said 84-year-old Joy Brooks, a customer since the 1950s.

Like many others, Brooks came to Safeway on Saturday to say goodbye to all the employees and fill her grocery cart for the last time. She showed up the day before to shop but decided to come again.

“I don’t like change,” said Brooks, who slowly wandered up and down the aisles, picking up a few last-minute items – a head of cabbage, a bag of apples, onions and a $2.99 sugar-free marionberry pie. “This is my store. I know everybody, and I know where everything is.”

Earlier this summer, Safeway officials announced the store would close this fall. At about 24,000 square feet, the near-downtown grocery was the smallest Safeway in the area and didn’t fit with the “lifestyle” renovations – expanded floral, deli and take-out departments, for instance – that Safeway has undertaken elsewhere.

Groceries need at least 50,000 to 55,000 square feet to create those “lifestyle” stores, explained Safeway District Manager Brian Kingsbury. “The direction of the business is headed toward that. (The Third and Maple store) isn’t the size you would like to have to do a lifestyle store.”

Safeway also doesn’t own the property located at 1617 W. Third Ave.

It’s unclear at this point what will happen to the building and adjacent parking lot. Four different landlords own the property, according to Kingsbury, who didn’t have any information about the site’s future.

A representative from Safeway’s Real Estate Department in Bellevue, Wash., did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The roughly 38 employees at the store have been transferred to other Safeway locations.

The corporation, which operates 1,800 stores nationwide, has 11 groceries in Spokane County as well as stores in Coeur d’Alene, Chewelah and elsewhere.

Longtime customers will now shop at Rosauers in Browne’s Addition or the one on West 14th Avenue. Those who feel strongly about getting their groceries at Safeway will have to drive to the store on Northwest Boulevard or the one on 29th Avenue. Most of the shoppers at the near-downtown store, however, live in nearby Browne’s Addition or the lower South Hill and usually walk to buy their groceries.

“I can’t believe they’re closing my Safeway,” said Joan Lockridge, who lives six blocks away.

For 38 years, the 72-year-old has befriended the checkers and other employees at the store. The butcher always cut her meat in smaller portions, she said.

Often, the folks at the deli made sure her fried chicken was cooked fresh and packaged right when she finished shopping.

“I’m going to miss this place,” said 85-year-old Eloise Moeller, a resident of the lower South Hill. “They’ve been so nice to me.”

When she first learned the store was closing, Moeller went home and cried. For 45 years, she has been coming to the store at least two or three times a week.

She returned for the last time this week with thank-you cards for several employees, who served cake and coffee to shoppers.

“We’re like a family,” said Jay Ashbaugh, a 32-year Safeway employee who has worked at the store for 15 years.

Many, especially those who had worked at the supermarket for more than two decades, had tears in their eyes as they hugged and said goodbye.

“We care about our customers, our community and each other,” said Roberta Choquette, who has worked at the near-downtown Safeway for 27 years. “It’s a great place. …

“It was a great place.”