Rio Grande Stop & Shop to Close

RIO GRANDE — The 60,000-square-foot Rio Grande Super Stop & Shop, 3401 Route 9 South, one of nine Stop & Shop markets that will be purchased by Wakefern Food Corp., parent company of ShopRite, will close. The future of that store is uncertain, while the other eight stores will reopen as ShopRites beginning at month’s end.
The Rio Grande Super Stop & Shop opened on Oct. 6, 2005 with 200 employes in the Grande Center Shopping Center, Routes 9 and 47.
At its grand opening, Assemblyman Nelson Albano (D-1st) lauded the store as offering its workers good union jobs with benefits. The store reportedly now has 100 employees, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 152.
An advertisement in the July 11 Cape May County Herald’s print edition announces the pending closure with a display ad that states, “Everything must go. Store Closing Sale.”
It directs shoppers to the store for details. Those with a Stop & Shop card can get a variety of products for 25 percent off regular price, it states. Included in the sale are frozen foods, health and beauty care products, condiments, baking products, coffee, tea and hot cocoa, canned vegetables and tomatoes, jars of spaghetti sauce, soups and gravies.
The closure of the local store had been rumored for several months, but never confirmed by company officials.
Its closure comes in the wake of the opening, in mid-June, of a Wal-Mart store that sells many grocery items. That store is located at the northern end of the shopping center, and sells many grocery items. Stop & Shop is at the south end of the same center.