Farewell to Earth Fare

Earth Fare #582

13024 Narcoosee Road, Orlando (Lake Nona), FL - The Shoppes at Nona Place

     If the failure of Lucky's Market wasn't enough to get 2020 off to a shaky start in the grocery world, the sudden and unexpected failure of Earth Fare made things even worse. Only two weeks after Lucky's announced the closure of nearly all its stores, organic rival Earth Fare announced that it would be totally liquidating. With Lucky's and Earth Fare putting much of their recent emphasis on expanding into Florida, this was a nasty double whammy of store closings for the Floridian supermarket scene. While the Lucky's drama stole more of the headlines in Florida due to the company's larger expansion push in the state, Earth Fare's woes were mostly swept under the rug after the initial announcement of the company's liquidation. While Lucky's made a bang with their demise, Earth Fare quietly liquidated, with the final Earth Fare stores closing for good on February 25, 2020.

     In this post we'll be taking a look at two different Earth Fare stores, beginning with the location in Lake Nona, FL (an unincorporated area southeast of Orlando). The Lake Nona Earth Fare opened on September 29, 2018, and closed on February 25, 2020. Like Lucky's, the majority of Earth Fare's Florida locations weren't open for very long, with most of the company's 14 Florida stores barely making it past the three year mark. Earth Fare originally entered Florida in 2010 with a single store in Tallahassee, however it wasn't until the late 2010's when Earth Fare began a much larger push into the state. Also like Lucky's, Earth Fare exited Florida with a handful of locations in the midst of construction, like the upcoming Earth Fare stores in DeLand and Lady Lake. To show how unexpected Earth Fare's liquidation was, this article was published exactly one month before the liquidation was announced, explaining the company's plans to double its store count in Florida. While Lucky's and Earth Fare's demise couldn't have been timed any worse, I'm still not sure if all this was pure coincidence, or a sign that the organic grocery bubble is finally beginning to pop.

     Anyway, my visit to the Lake Nona store happened about half way through Earth Fare's liquidation, so things will be looking quite barren here. Stepping inside, instead of being greeted by bins of produce, we were greeted by boxes of random store supplies. All the produce displays were converted into stands to hold the boxes of cups, containers, and other random things found in the back of the store.

     Not so fresh, organic & local anymore in the produce department...

     From the edge of the produce department, here's a look across the front end. The registers were located behind that stack of crates in the distance, with the prepared foods counters poking out from the side wall.

     While a lot of the merchandise had depleted as discounts hit 60% off in some categories, the entirety of the sales floor was still open at this point in the liquidation. Seen here is the store's rightmost aisle, home to bulk foods. During my visit, almost all the bulk foods had been sold out. 

     The Meat and Seafood counter was located in the back right corner of the store. While Earth Fare and Lucky's were comparable stores as far as merchandise selection was concerned, Earth Fare was much more "in your face" with their philosophies on organic foods than Lucky's was. As I've mentioned before, while Lucky's was organic-focused, Lucky's did carry non-organic produce and some non-organic products. That was Lucky's way to ease people into organics, and to make the store seem less "stuffy" to people (like me) who aren't into the whole organic thing. Earth Fare, however, had something called a "boot list", which was a long list of certain ingredients that weren't allowed to be in products carried in their stores (including artificial dyes, preservatives, and things of that nature). Earth Fare was very much pushing that "boot list" and "clean food", to the point where their official slogan was "Live longer with Earth Fare". While that was Earth Fare's mission, in the end, Earth Fare wasn't able to live longer with us.

     Looking across the back of the store, we see the empty dairy coolers off to my right. The center of this aisle was also being used to house some of the fixtures that were for sale.

     Unlike Lucky's, Earth Fare was using lots of the classic store closing signage we've seen all over the place - from Kmart to hhgregg to everywhere in between. While this picture only shows some of the percent-off signs, there were plenty of the yellow and red store closing signs to be found here. It just happens that none of those yellow and red "Everything Must Go!" signs made it into my pictures, as Earth Fare did a good job of hiding them throughout the store. Every aisle marker had a closing sign taped to it, and you can see pieces of those signs in a few of my photos from the Lake Nona Earth Fare.

     Stepping out into the front aisle, one of those famous closing signs is peeking out from underneath the aisle 6 marker at the top corner of the photo.

     Frozen foods was located in the center of the store.

     The wine department can be seen here, nestled in a little pocket behind health and beauty.

     Stepping away from the wine, here's the health and beauty department, which took up two aisles between frozen foods and the fresh departments.

     Returning to the back of the store, here's one final look toward the grocery aisles.

     The bakery department was located in the back left corner, the very last department in the fresh aisle (the remainder of which is out of frame to my left).

     Since we were over half way through the closing at this point, none of the fresh departments were open anymore. I'm surprised this side of the store wasn't roped off yet, actually, but the lack of caution tape made picture taking that much easier!.

     Stepping back a bit from the last photo, we can see the deli counter, the salad bar, and the hot foods bar. To my right were coolers for drinks and beer, which were also empty (except for one cooler at the very front of the aisle, which had a few random drink bottles consolidated into it).

     Like just about every modern Earth Fare store, the city or neighborhood name was incorporated into the name of the prepared foods department, which was called the "Nona Place Kitchen" here. Nona Place is actually the name of the small shopping center this store is located in, and not the name of the area (which is Lake Nona). No matter how they phrased it though, it was still a fun little addition of local flare.

     To the left of the Nona Place Kitchen was the juice bar, which like all the other fresh departments, was closed.

     Before leaving, here's a look at the front end, looking back toward the produce department.

     With this store looking into its final week open, there weren't going to be too many opportunities to "see us soon" anymore.

     With that little spin around the Lake Nona Earth Fare done, we'll jump forward a week and head 50 miles to the east for the conclusion of our post - a quick peek at the Rockledge Earth Fare during its second to last day open:

Kash n' Karry #1908 / Earth Fare #583

5410 Murrell Road, Rockledge (Viera), FL - Viera East Market Center

     We've seen the Rockledge Earth Fare on the blog before in this post, which took a look around the store shortly after it opened in January 2019. In all, the Rockledge Earth Fare lasted just barely one year, closing for good on February 23, 2020 - two days before the last of the Earth Fare stores closed for good. The Rockledge Earth Fare took over a long-vacant Kash n' Karry building in a dying shopping center, bringing life back to this place upon its opening. In the year Earth Fare was here, this shopping center saw a large increase in tenants, with many of the smaller storefronts finding new life after so many years of emptiness. Earth Fare's departure was a bit of a blow to this plaza, which was finally on an upswing after so many years of decline.

     Heading inside, this store had an identical layout to the Lake Nona Earth Fare we just toured. Produce was located just inside the entrance, although the produce display bins had become home to whatever merchandise was left in the store at the time. The perimeter of the produce department contained racks of store supplies, although it didn't seem like there was as many cases of supplies for sale here as there were in Lake Nona.

     With only two days left to go, most of the sales floor (except for the produce department and front end) were closed off to customers. Aisle 1, pictured in the background here, was blocked off by shelves of supplies.

     Peeking through the shelves, here's a look down aisle 1 at the old bulk foods department.

     The store closing signage was a little more apparent here than it was in Lake Nona, as we see some of the famous closing signs hung around the front end. Unlike the West Melbourne Lucky's last day, which the employees were treating as a farewell party, the employees here certainly weren't living up to Lucky's "Don't be sad, be happy it happened" mantra. The people working here on this day all seemed a bit grumpy, but we'll get back to that in a moment...

     Caution tape blocks off access to this grocery aisle, which was completely empty. One thing that does differentiate the Rockledge Earth Fare from the Lake Nona store we just saw is the use of clerestory windows over the sales floor, a relic from Kash n' Karry days in this building. Unlike this store, the Lake Nona Earth Fare was built from scratch.

     Turning away from the grocery aisles, here's a look across the front end. The juice bar and the Viera Kitchen are located straight ahead, with frozen foods off to my right. Also note the lady in black in the foreground of this image - I'm going to get back to her in a moment too...

     This photo is similar to the last one, but angled up a bit further to showcase more of Kash n' Karry's clerestory windows. As I mentioned in my original posts from this store, this building was one of Kash n' Karry's weird round prototype stores from the late 1990's, which featured a really strange curved layout around a central service island. While a good 10-15 of these prototypes were opened throughout Florida, only one still survives to this day with the original layout in-tact (and that store is on my radar to visit one of these days, as this prototype is quite intriguing, but that's besides the point right now).

     More clerestory can be seen over the empty frozen foods aisles, where all of the coolers had been emptied and turned off.

     Besides the little bit of grocery stuff crammed into the old produce department, there was still a decent amount of merchandise left in the health and beauty department, pictured here. It seemed like most of the people in the store during my visit crammed themselves into this aisle, as it was packed down here! I guess an 80% off discount will do that...

     My last interior photo from the Rockledge Earth Fare looks down the old fresh department aisle, toward the old deli and bakery counters. The reason my interior tour is going to end so abruptly here is because right after I took this photo, an employee came up to me and told me to stop taking photos. Since this was a closing (and the second to last day, no less), I wasn't trying too hard to hide what I was doing. I believe what happened is that lady in black I pointed out before (who appeared to be some kind of front end employee, patrolling that part of the store the entire time I was here), ratted me out to a group of managers standing in a circle around the service desk. I couldn't figure out how those managers could have spotted me taking pictures all the way over here from the service desk, so I feel that lady in black was the one to tip them off, as she seemed to be staring down everyone who was walking by her. After I took this photo I was going to get one or two more pictures across the front end for a seamless transition out the store, when the one manager popped out from one of the check lanes to tell me to stop. Since I was already in the process of working my way out, the only thing I replied to the manager's comment was "OK" before making a beeline to the door. In six years of photographing stores, that was the first time I was ever approached by an employee who told me to stop. My only other encounters up to then were from curious customers and bystanders (who were more curious than concerned with what I was doing in all those cases), my lady friend in Winter Haven (who was annoyed with the fact I was taking pictures, but never actually told me to stop), and a run in with the cops (although I promise you that incident had nothing to do with photo taking - I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with that one!)

     That little incident aside, I did take this final shot of the exterior as I left the store. While my parting experience with Earth Fare was much different than my parting experience with Lucky's two days prior, both stores served their purpose well, and will be missed by the communities they served. While Lucky's has managed to find buyers for roughly half of their former Florida locations so far, Earth Fare isn't in the same position. I have yet to hear of anything taking over any of the former Earth Fare stores, so the fates of both the Lake Nona and Rockledge locations we saw today will remain up in the air for now. Like Lucky's, it's a shame to see so many practically new stores sitting empty now, as Florida's crazy grocery wars claim two more victims back-to-back. It will be interesting to see how the effects of Lucky's and Earth Fare's sudden implosions play out over the coming months, and how these spaces will get re-tenanted.

     Now that I've spent much of the last month blogging about these current events, I can finally get back on track with some of my other previously scheduled content. Be on the lookout for that soon, as long as we don't have any more crazy retail developments to hit us in the near future!

So until the next post,

AFB

How Did the Old Kash n' Karry Fare?

Kash n' Karry #1908 / Earth Fare #583

5410 Murrell Road, Rockledge (Viera), FL - Viera East Market Center

       This Kash n' Karry store opened in 2000 as the only Kash n’ Karry to ever be built from scratch on Florida’s East Coast. (Long story short, all of Kash n’ Karry’s other short-lived East Coast locations were converted Food Lions, a situation you can read about in more detail here and here). In addition to that, this was also the first supermarket to open in the new Viera mega-development, which was just getting off the ground when this store opened in 2000. This store closed with the rest of the Kash n’ Karrys on Florida’s East Coast and in Central Florida in 2004, when Kash n’ Karry retreated to their core market around Tampa Bay and Florida’s West Coast. That closure wave began the process of converting the remaining Kash n' Karry stores into Sweetbay Supermarkets. After Kash n' Karry closed, this building was subdivided into Sunbay Fitness and HomeCenter. HomeCenter (whatever that was) closed by the early 2010's, and Sunbay Fitness closed in late 2015 or early 2016. After sitting vacant again for a few years, the former HomeCenter half of the building became home to Brevard County's first Earth Fare supermarket, which opened on January 9, 2019. After 15 years, a supermarket finally found itself in this plaza once again, which is pretty neat. The old Sunbay half of the building (the right side) is still vacant as of mid-2019.

     With all this coverage of closings here on My Florida Retail, namely the closing of the Melbourne Sears store we've been following since the launch of this blog, why not take a look at a grand opening for a change? Only three days after Brevard County lost its second to last Sears store, some happier retail news was about to happen around here. In the early hours of the morning on January 9, 2019, Brevard County's first Earth Fare store opened its doors to a crowd of eager shoppers. One of those shoppers happened to be me, as I enjoy getting out and going to a good grand opening celebration, especially when a free gift card giveaway is involved 😀 AFB's interest in freebies aside, this grand opening celebration also gave me a reason to check out another one of the many new organic-focused supermarket chains making their way into Florida: Earth Fare. Since we've covered the history of this building rather extensively in previous installments of MFR, today we'll primarily focus on Earth Fare and what exactly this place is all about (and the few remnants from Kash n' Karry that still remain).

     Earth Fare was founded in 1975 in Asheville, NC. In the years since, Earth Fare has grown into a chain of 50 stores with locations clustered about in the Southeastern and Midwestern states. Earth Fare opened their first Florida location in Tallahassee in 2010, however a huge push into Florida wouldn't come about for a while. Earth Fare's second Florida location didn't appear until 2014, with a few additional stores opening in Northern Florida through 2017. 2018 is when things would change for Earth Fare in Florida, and new stores began to be announced all throughout the state. With the rise of Lucky's and numerous other "less pretentious" organic grocery chains throughout Florida (like Sprout's and Greenwise Market), the time was now for Earth Fare. Just Googling "Earth Fare in Florida" brings up numerous grand opening articles and announcements of new stores throughout the state.

     Like Lucky's, Earth Fare is targeting many markets that the big names in organics (aka Whole Foods) would never think to touch. Also like Lucky's, Earth Fare prefers to select abandoned retail buildings for their new stores, just like this one was. Anyway, my coverage of this store begins on the morning of January 9, 2019, when the first two photos you've seen were taken. The photos in this post are a mix of ones taken on grand opening day, as well as some taken about a week later. Since this place was such a crowded mess on grand opening day, many of my photos from that day turned out showing nothing but a wall of people! A week later things were a bit calmer here, and I was able to put together a comprehensive look at Brevard County's newest grocery store. With that being said, let's head inside and take a look around:

     Like most of these organic stores, the first department you enter stepping through the front doors is produce. Produce is located in the front right corner of the store, this photo looking across the store's front end toward the prepared foods and the juice bar (both of which we'll look at in more detail later). Also visible in this photo are some clerestory windows that are a remnant from this building's days as a Kash n' Karry. While Earth Fare and the prior tenants essentially gutted this place to the walls, the clerestory windows from Kash n' Karry were allowed to remain after all these years. It's nice to see these windows remain, as they let a lot of natural light into the store.

     If it wasn't apparent, the previous photo was taken during my second visit to this store. Here on opening day, this place was a sea of people! Even with the larger crowd, this early morning picture allowed for a less sun-glared look at the clerestory windows overhead.

     Turning around, the produce prep counter is located in the front right corner of this building.

     Here's a slightly pulled back view of the produce prep counter from grand opening day, and the swarm of people filling up the produce department.

     Still in the produce department, here's a look down the store's right side wall, the clerestory windows in the back of the building visible here. This wall is the dividing wall that splits the old Kash n' Karry space in half. Like I said earlier in this post, this store was one of the unusual round format Kash n' Karry stores. I'm not entirely sure of how the round store layout worked, but it was pretty strange from what I understand. I know there was an island in the center of the store for the deli, and meats were on the back wall. The grocery aisles curved around the center island somehow, but I'm not sure how. I really would have loved to see this place in original form, as the round layout was like nothing else I've ever heard of.

     The majority of this store's first aisle is home to bulk foods. Like most other organic stores, the bulk food department offers a variety of bulk candies, coffees, spices, grains, granola, honey, and other things (like the peanut butter grinder visible in the foreground).

     Here's a better look down the rest of the bulk food aisle - better meaning more of this department can be seen here, not necessarily a reference to the quality of the picture. Since this was grand opening day, plenty of other people were walking around taking pictures, so the crowd and the thought of getting caught or seen by others taking photos wasn't bothering me that day. What was bothering me was that with all the people in this place on grand opening morning, all the people kept blocking what I wanted to get a photo of!

     Coming back a week later after all the fuss dies down really helps! Here's a less crowded photo looking down this store's first aisle, which eventually transitions into the seafood department after leaving the bulk foods.

     The back right corner of the store is home to the meat and seafood departments, and was a popular shopping destination on grand opening morning! Not only that, but there were also free sample tables back here as well on opening day, and people weren't going to turn down a free sample of bacon.

     Somewhere behind all of those people is a seafood counter - just trust me on that!

     There were a few aisles of dry groceries here, I think 3-4 dedicated to a variety of prepackaged foods.

     Unlike Lucky's, who carries some non-organic products in order to make themselves look more appealing and less pretentious to people who aren't all-in to the organic fad, Earth Fare is very strict with the organic thing. In order for your product to be carried by Earth Fare, it can't contain any of these ingredients in it, amongst other criteria.

     Here's a look toward the remainder of the grocery aisles and frozen foods. You can also see one of the aisle markers poking out here behind the gift cards.

     Looking up at the ceiling here, you can see some of this building's former roundness still trying to show.

     The wine department is located in the back of the store, behind the health and beauty section we'll be seeing shortly.

     Turning around, here's a look toward the back left corner of this store, home to the dairy department.

     Frozen foods take up this single aisle in the center of the store.

     The next two aisles to the left of frozen foods were home to the health and beauty department, home to a variety of natural personal care products, vitamins, medicines, and aromatherapy goods.

     Continuing our trek into the left side of this store, we now enter the dairy department.

     Beyond the dairy department in the back left corner of the store was the cheese counter, home to a vast selection of cheeses from around the world. From the looks of it, you could buy anywhere from a small slice to an entire wheel of cheese here.

     Moving away from the land of cheese, we'll now turn our attention to the remaining departments located along this store's left side wall. The department located furthest to the back of the store is the bakery, visible here behind the crowd.

     With all the people packing into this place on grand opening morning, it was pretty hard navigating through the aisles, especially the aisles along the store's perimeter. Even some of the store's center aisles were getting jammed, as the lines from the front registers were beginning to back up into the grocery aisles by the time I left here on grand opening morning.

     Anyway, the next department up from the bakery was the deli, which is just out of frame to my left here. The deli was giving out samples of Earth Fare's chicken salad, which is apparently one of the store's specialty items. I didn't feel like fighting the crowd by the deli counter for a chicken salad sample, but I did fight the crowd for samples of pastries from the bakery. One of the samples I had from the bakery was of a flat fruit filled pastry, which appeared to me to be Earth Fare's healthy, homemade, organic version of a Pop Tart (going off of how it looked), which I thought was interesting (and really good too)!

     In front of the bakery and deli departments were the hot foods bars, which you can see pictured here. Since I was here early, the hot food bars were only filled with a small selection of breakfast foods. Later in the day Earth Fare puts out a larger variety of hot foods, which typically follow a theme that changes depending on what day it is.

     In addition to the hot food bars, the remainder of the prepared foods could be found over here in the kitchen. However, this isn't just any kitchen, it's the Viera Kitchen - a nice little touch of local flare. The kitchen is where this store's pizza counter is located, as well as the sandwich station.

     Immediately next to the kitchen is the juice bar, again, blocked by a wall of people. Here is where you can buy a variety of smoothies and other blended and infused juice drinks, along with freshly squeezed orange juice.

     Against my better judgement, I decided to grab two pizza slices while I was here on grand opening morning. While the pizza was good (the crust nice and thin, just the way I like it), the lines here were insane. The line I was in stretched about halfway down one of the grocery aisles, and according to the timestamps on my photos, I waited in that line for 45 minutes for my two slices of pizza! Oh well, like I said, I enjoyed the pizza, so it was worth it in the end. Pictured here is the seating area located in the front left corner of the store, where I was able to find a seat and take a few minutes to enjoy my breakfast. Another nice little thing about Earth Fare's seating area is they offered free iced tea here, which was a plus (and much more exciting than the usual free water!).

      Now that I've fought off a crowd and had my breakfast, we can bring this tour to a close as we head back outside for a few final photos...

     While Earth Fare's arrival called for reconstruction of the old Kash n' Karry facade, the old round exterior can still be seen poking though the new storefronts if you look closely at the above photo. Currently, the right half of the old Kash n' Karry building (which was previously home to Sunbay Fitness) is still vacant. Earth Fare was using this storefront as storage during the grand opening festivities, but with the new life they've brought to this center, it shouldn't be too hard to find someone to fill up the empty right half of this building.

     Even though it took 15 years, this old Kash n' Karry was able to find life as a supermarket once again. Earth Fare's arrival to this plaza really turned things around here. Prior to Earth Fare, and even when Sunbay Fitness and HomeCenter were still here, this plaza was very slow and didn't offer much of a reason for people to come here. With Earth Fare, this plaza is always packed now, completely transforming Viera's most depressing shopping center into one of the area's newest hubs. With the new Viera Boulevard interchange on Interstate 95 about to open soon as well (located less than a mile from this plaza), this store will begin to draw even more people to the area.

     So I guess you can say the story of this old Kash n' Karry store had a happy ending. This location was rather perfect for Earth Fare, taking this otherwise dead plaza and turning it into a destination once again. Now if only we can get more stories like that! To close out this post, here's a look at this building from a few years ago, back when it was still semi-abandoned. With the overgrowth cut down, the parking lot repaved, and a new grocery store in place, it does a lot to cheer this place up, right? While I do miss the unique look of this building's original facade, at least some elements from the Kash n' Karry days live on here in Viera.

So that's all I have for this post. Until the next time,

AFB