By Philip L. Watness for Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — The long drive from Forks will be much different next month for Marlene Mendenhall, 53, who was taken aback Friday on pulling into the Saar’s Market Place Foods.
She knew from the clearance-sale signs advertising 50 percent off that her preferred grocery store would soon be gone.
“I come once a month to do the majority of my shopping here,” Mendenhall said.
“I’m also a caregiver, and she depends on it, too.”
“This is usually my first stop. Now, I’ll have to go to other stores, but I could make my money go further here.”
The 40,000-square-foot store at 2343 E. U.S. Highway 101 is selling its inventory before shutting its doors for good.
Store manager Ben Kreidler, 35, of Tacoma said he has seen some customers looking rather down as they came in to shop, perhaps for the last time. He lowered his shoulders slightly to show the body language.
“It’s a real sad deal, and I know people are going to miss the store,” he said.
Kreidler is overseeing the closing sale and said he couldn’t speculate on when the doors would close for good.
“It’s getting pretty bare pretty quick,” he said.
Mendenhall would usually buy five dozen eggs, fresh and frozen vegetables, and meats on her monthly shopping trip.
“Their prices were always better than anywhere else,” she said.
“I’m a scratch cook, and I wanted to make a Mexican dish, and all I found was fajita spice — that was all there was.”
Other shoppers picking through the increasingly barren shelves also cited the 14-year-old store’s low prices for meats and vegetables as one of the primary draws of the grocery outlet.
“It’s sad to see it has to close,” said Sue Richmond, 48, of Port Angeles. “It really had great prices on meat and produce.”
Those items have long since been sent home in grocer’s bags.
The gray metal shelves had cereal, condiments and toiletries in good supply Friday, but most other products had been bought since the fire sale first began back in early April.
April Lauritzen, 40, of Sequim was stocking up on diapers — which were in good supply despite the 50-percent-off sign that went up earlier in the week.
With a baby on the way, and toddlers Noah, 2, and Nathaniel, 1, Lauritzen needed diapers, and she filled her cart nearly full with them and other items.
“I can’t afford the other grocery stores, especially for produce and so forth,” Lauritzen said.
She said she has been a regular customer at Saar’s since 2003, when she discovered it driving by one day.
She said she would shop monthly at the store, watching closely for sales, especially on the already-low-cost meat products.
“Oh, I was disappointed,” Lauritzen said upon hearing the news the store was closing.
“With my friends, they were disappointed, too, because of the good deals and the helpful workers.
“They’re always nice, and the produce manager would get you whatever you asked for.”
Store employee Ginger Brannian, 66, has been with the store for 13 of its 14 years.
She’s one of 25 employees who will lose their jobs once the store closes its doors.
“It’s not fair,” she said. “I’m not ready.”
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 in Seattle, which represents Saar’s workers, was told April 4 about the impending closure after contract negotiations fell apart in late March, according to Tom Geiger, communications director for the union.
Geiger said Saar’s was seeking employee wage cuts of up to $4 an hour, and the union made a counter-offer of $1-an-hour wage cuts, which was not accepted.
Brannian said she would miss the customers, particularly the longtime regulars who travel from Clallam Bay, Forks and Port Hadlock for the store’s discount deals.
“People make their dollar spread farther here,” she said.
“I wish we could keep it open. There’s a real, real desperate need for people on a fixed income.”
“I feel for the workers and manager, too,” Richmond said. “What are they going to do? So many people are having a hard time paying bills.”
She said the loss of so many local businesses has given her pause: “We keep getting empty buildings around here, and that’s scary to see.”
Kreidler said he could not address the reasons for the store’s closure, though several customers said they also shopped at the large discount stores like Walmart and Costco and recognized the new Walmart Supercenter a few miles out of town likely had an impact on the company’s decision to sell the store.
Corporate general manager John Hames said in April, when asked if Saar’s was affected by the October opening of the nearby Walmart Supercenter, that “additional competition is too much for Port Angeles.
“It was already ‘overstored’ before additional competition came in,” Hames said.
The building, owned by Saar Properties LLC of Oak Harbor, has a 2010 value of $898,524, according to the Clallam County Assessor’s Office.
Hames said Saar’s Inc.’s nine other stores in Washington state are in no danger of closing.
The Port Angeles store was discount-oriented Stockmarket Foods before it was purchased by Saar’s Inc. 14 years ago, Hames said.
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Philip L. Watness is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend.
