Grand Mart in Centreville closing on 4/14. I've really enjoyed the convenience of a local market. Anyone know why this grocery is closing and what's coming in it's place?

Harris Teeter

idk why the meat had samonella?

Sk Wrote:
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> Harris Teeter


That would be awesome!

drew

What was the cause of the closure:

1) Too many health violations?

2) Or, too much competition?

When I went into the place a few years back, the whole seafood area was nasty. They had fish in various containers stacked on the floor in front of the meat case. All of the water from the leaking containers caused many of the tiles on the floor to lift up and they would then just toss them.

I'm sure from a health inspector's perspective, Grand Mart was worthy of about 2 pages of write-ups from a typical visit. Granted, I'm not sure some of the other local restaurants would be any better -- but most would not have that open fish market atmosphere either.

Is the Centreville Grand Mart Closed Now ?

Here are 2 photos I found doing a Google Image Search.

Here in Vienna/Fairfax Circle Area (Provident District Fairfax) we have Super H and Lotti Korean Asia Markets that are both rather popular here.

You guys in Centreville do not have a Lotti or Super H Mart type Korean Asian Food Market ?

Cafe Twin
Attachments:

waldenthreenet Wrote:
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> Is the Centreville Grand Mart Closed Now ?

Yes, it's closed.

> Here are 2 photos I found doing a Google Image
> Search.

How nice for you.

> Here in Vienna/Fairfax Circle Area (Provident
> District Fairfax) we have Super H and Lotti Korean
> Asia Markets that are both rather popular here.
>
> You guys in Centreville do not have a Lotti or
> Super H Mart type Korean Asian Food Market ?

H Mart's been open in Centreville a little over a year, after purchasing the former Hanaro Food (whose owner, incidentally, seems to have been caught up in the real estate scam recently busted by the feds). There's also Lotte Plaza in Chantilly.

New LOTTE coming, offering to a congruent community.

For decades, the grocery business has had very low profit margins. Even some of the big names, such as Harris Teeter and Safeway, literally make almost no profit. They rely on volume discounts from their wholesalers, heavy cash flow and rapidly turning over inventory to stay in business. THe larger chains also have very sophisticated ways of determining what items to carry and which to drop from their store offerings; the Korean supermarkets simply do not not have the corporate structure and analytic capacity to do this, so they stock goods that do not make much money but may be what they think they need to carry to keep their "Koreanness." You have to admire the ambition of the entrepreneurs who run Lotte, Hmart and these other Korean stores but their business acumen is simply lacking. They'd make more money running a small corner convenience store because the former can charge huge markups, while Grand Mart has to compete against Giant or Wegmans, which own many times more stores and can get wholesale volume discounts. I always wondered why those Korean stores had no heat in the winter and no air conditions in the summer....

They might make more money if the fresh food section didn't look like the National zoo.

The one in Sterling on Route 7 looks like it's going to be closing. I went by this weekend and thought shoppers had cleaned out their shelves over Thanksgiving. Today, they haven't been restocking the aisles. The produce section has been getting replenished.