Greenfresh Market in Renton posts ‘out-of-business’ sign

January 21, 2009 9:12 pm
According to the pictured signs posted on the doors of Greenfresh Market
According to the pictured signs posted on the doors of Greenfresh Market

The “TEMPORARILY CLOSED. SEE YOU SOON” sandwich board outside Greenfresh Market has been replaced by several signs bearing less cheery news.

“GREENFRESH IS OUT OF BUSINESS.” That’s the message typed on four 8-by-11 sheets of white paper posted in the Rainier Avenue North grocery store that specialized in natural and organic food. Other big yellow signs posted in the store’s windows list the building as “AVAILABLE.”

Greenfresh CEO Fred Coutts and Greenfresh co-owner and wine steward David L. Allen did not return repeated phone calls for comment

During a December interview, Coutts said Greenfresh closed Dec. 4 after the store lost power. Coutts said it wasn’t a storm that caused that power outage. But he wouldn’t name the outage’s cause.

At that time, Coutts said he hoped to reopen Greenfresh within a week or two. He also said that he and other Greenfresh leaders were working on a long-term plan for the store, which opened in April 2007.

Coutts said at that time that Greenfresh would not reopen without becoming “100 percent the way we want it.”

“When we reopen it will mean we’ve got a real good long-term plan,” he then added.

It seems that real good long-term plan was not created.

Coutts said much of Greenfresh’s food spoiled after the December power outage. Now, the freezer cases and bread section visible through the front doors appear empty. But bags, cans and boxes of food still line the shelves, many tagged with fluorescent green tags advertising specials.

Greenfresh Market’s closure is bad news for Paul Temple. The 64-year-old Fairwood

resident had shopped at Greenfresh since shortly after it opened.

He loved Greenfresh’s produce, and bought other organic foods there too. He called the store a “real positive” in Renton.

“It was a very pleasant store and I had hoped it would catch on,” he said.

Even so, Temple wasn’t surprised when the “closed” signs went up. He said he never saw more than a handful of shoppers in the store at a time. Location was the store’s “fundamental flaw,” he said.

Because Greenfresh was a “bit of a drive,” he and his wife Elnora only went there for specific items.

Now they shop at Safeway and stock up on organics at PCC Natural Markets near Seward Park and Whole Foods in Bellevue. But Temple misses Greenfresh.

“The prices were fair, the surroundings were very nice and I had a sense that it was run by good management,” Temple said. “These days I guess the retail business must be more and more challenging.”