Renton IGA store is closed; all its food is sold, some going to food bank

By Dean Radford • April 6, 2009 7:53 pm
Long-time customer Arlis Peterson is helped checking out Tuesday at the Renton IGA on Southeast 128th Street east of Renton from owners Pam and John Lowney. The store is going to close within a matter of days
Long-time customer Arlis Peterson is helped checking out Tuesday at the Renton IGA on Southeast 128th Street east of Renton from owners Pam and John Lowney. The store is going to close within a matter of days

UPDATE

The Renton IGA just east of Renton closed on Sunday, perhaps its busiest day ever, according to owner John Lowney.

“We got slammed on Sunday,” said Lowney, doing a week’s worth of business in about eight hours. The inventory was cleaned out; it was marked 70 percent off.

The normal individual sales size was up from about $12 to $50 (before the discount).

“Quite a few” customers told Lowney they were there buying food for the Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank, a suggestion I made in a column a week ago.

“We are gone. We had a long run. It’s over,” Lowney said Thursday.

THE ORIGINAL STORY

Renton is losing its fourth grocery store, the victim of a recession that is shuttering businesses across the city and beyond.

The Renton IGA on Southeast 128th Street at 164th Avenue Southeast just east of Renton will close “within 10 days,” owner John Lowney said on Monday.

Gone now are all but five of the 26 full- and part-time workers the independent grocer once employed. They are selling, at 30 percent off, the remaining groceries – such staples as canned and dry goods – still on the shelves.

It has been an emotional time for Lowney and his wife Pam who have devoted themselves to the store. It’s been tough on customers, too, grown used to having a convenient grocer nearby.

“We have a core of very loyal customers,” said Lowney. “We built this business on our personal relationships with our customers.”

But that relationship was sorely tried by the recession.

IGA and other neighborhood grocers succeeded in their competitive battles against the big grocery chains and warehouse stores because they are like having a pantry in your backyard.

That convenience was the key to his success, Lowney said.

“When money gets tight, people will give up that convenience to spend a little less,” he said.

The IGA is not alone. Thriftway in the Renton Village Shopping Center is being replaced by the Asian food-specialty store, Uwajimaya. Also gone are QFC in Fairwood and Greenfresh Market on Rainier Avenue North.

The Renton IGA is at least the fourth store at small shopping area between Renton and Issaquah and not far from Liberty High School. Before it were Thriftway, Holiday Foods and QFC, according to Lowney.

The nearest grocery stores are now about two miles away.

Before the Lowneys opened their store about 8 1/2 years ago, the building had been dark for about two years. The Lowneys had hoped that by now, their area would have annexed to Renton. They are outside a recent large annexation in the area.

Annexation would have meant sewers, which would have led to more development – and customers, he said.

Without a sewer, the store couldn’t have a deli, part of the convenience of a neighborhood grocery. Lowney’s original landlord agreed to install a $250,000 septic system that allowed him to offer a deli, making it sensible to locate a grocery there.

Still, Lowney said, the store “has not been as lucrative as we wanted. We fought our battles. We won a few. We lost a few. We were surviving.”

But the economic downtown was simply more than the store could handle financially, he said.

Sales from the previous January were down 15 percent. No options seemed available from either the landlord or the bank. The couple found themselves in a corner.

“I was out of money,” Lowney said. “Unfortunately, we had to call an end to it.”

Lowney figures he’ll stay in the trade.

“I am a decent grocer,” he said.