A small piece of old Lincoln Park is fading away this weekend with the announced closing of John’s Finer Foods, 1950 N. Sedgewick Ave., on Sunday after 44 years at the corner of Sedgewick and Lincoln avenues.
The store, which was purchased by Arthur Paris in March of 1996, will hold going-out-of-business inventory reduction sales starting this Thursday and running through Sunday, when it will finally close its door for good at 9 p.m. All of John’s Finer Foods staff will be transferring to Paris’s other store, the 64-year old Carnival Grocery, 458 W. Dickens Ave.
“With two new Dominick’s now open in the area and a new CVS right next door, well, their sales had to come from somewhere,” said Paris. “Our sales have taken a nose dive this year and the opening of the CVS store has only hastened the inevitable. It was costing us money each week just to stay open.”
Indeed, in a story from the Feb. 21 edition of Inside which covered a public meeting regarding the future CVS store at Armitage and Lincoln avenues, Paris stated, “This store [CVS] will likely put me out of business.” At the time, Paris’s unlikely prediction was then belittled by CVS representatives and ignored by area residents and community groups who may not have believed him, or who chose not to believe him.
“We’re going to consolidate the two stores and take those things which were successful from John’s and bring them over to Carnival,” said Paris. “We’re going to work on our strengths and hope we see a lot of familiar faces coming over to Carnival.” Paris had purchased Carnival Grocery from their long-time owners at the beginning of 2001 and at the time had no idea that CVS had targeted the area for a new store.
Paris had told Inside in February that “We’ll have to find a new niche if we’re going to survive as a store in this location.” This summer and fall CVS dedicated a lot of its retail space to carrying items similar to those carried at John’s, which they then sold at cost, or below cost, to try to take away John’s market share, according to Paris. “Nothing is coming out the way I had hoped, even though this was predictable,” said Paris. “With the two new Dominick’s and CVS stores here in the area they just targeted us and the other independent stores... they ran us out of business.”
“Going into that store was like stepping back in time,” said Kim Klausmeier, president of the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce. “John’s represents a time when everyone knew the corner grocer and his store was a center of social activity in the community: where you had a charge account to hold you over until payday. The continued loss of Lincoln Park’s family businesses is a problem we’re all very concerned about and I’m not sure it’s healthy for our community in the long run,” she said.
And Paris found little support from community groups in the store’s area who, at the time CVS was negotiating to come into the area, seemed more concerned with the look and size of CVS’s signage over the fate of a long-time independent, family-owned business.
“This store was 44 years old - we’d have liked to stay here,” said Paris. “My grandfather and great-grandfather both founded grocery businesses here. But it’s a vastly different business today than it was for them... I guess if we can’t find somebody to buy the store it will be converted to residential,” he said.
In the last decade many of Chicago’s independent grocery stores have succumbed to changes in shopping habits and price pressures from national chain stores like Dominick’s and Jewel/Osco and warehouse stores like Costco and Sam’s Club. Those stores located on the North Side were lucky in one respect, that the underlying real estate value of these properties provided a way for many long-time owners to cash out to residential and commercial developers.
In Roscoe Village, neighbors there still miss the home-made Guatemalan sausage once a staple of Cardenas Grocery on Roscoe St., the spot where 22 condos now sit. In North Center, the closing of Butera Foods caused great angst when it was announced that a new Crate & Barrel store would soon take its place.
Other closed stores of note in the last decade which have found new uses for their real estate include Johnnie’s Market which left the Lincoln and Belmont intersection; Evergreen Grocery once of Belmont and Broadway avenues; Super Pleasing Foods, International Foods and Treasure Island who all vacated Lincoln Square; and Certified Foods which will soon be the Raven Theater on Clark St. in Edgewater.
“Sure, the real estate is still valuable, but I’m a grocer,” said Paris. “I came here to run a food store.”
John’s going out of business sale starts Thursday and will offer 25 percent discounts on all items through Friday. On Saturday and Sunday all items are 50 percent off - cash and carry only.
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