MEXICO – Evelyn Hotham has done just about everything at Food City since she began working there when it opened in 1984.
On Monday, she was helping to pack it up.
Business has been bad and the company decided it was time to close the doors.
Zak Sclar, vice president and general manager of the Lewiston-based company, said the area is too competitive.
“We’ve been losing money for years,” he said Monday afternoon.
Until Wal-Mart came in a few years ago, he said, the small grocery store was doing OK. But for the past few years, some of the company’s other stores have been subsidizing the Mexico store, he said.
With the Mexico store closed, he said his father, company owner Stanley Sclar, will have seven Food City stories in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, and one Sav-A-Lot in Lewiston.
The local store employed 20 full- and part-time people. Companywide, the figure is about 600.
Many of the local employees will be offered jobs in nearby Food City stores as positions become available, said Zak Sclar.
He said the decision to close was made late last week when one last sale did not produce the results the company had hoped.
Employees learned of the closing when they went to work on Monday.
“It’s breaking my heart,” said Hotham. “I’m not surprised, but it hurts.”
In addition to working at the Mexico Food City for more than 20 years, she worked for 15 years at the Food Town, which had been located at the Food City site in the Mexico Plaza, and at a small grocery store in the Virginia section of Rumford.
“It’s been my life,” she said. “It’s home.”
She expects to fill in where needed at some of the nearby Food City stores.
Another longtime employee, Margie Hanson of Peru, has been with the company for 18 years, starting as a cashier and now working as office manager. She expects to go to work in the store on Route 4 in Turner, which last week announced it would be doubling in size.
“It’s really sad,” she said.
Lee Nile, the current Mexico store manager, who had worked as a meat cutter for several years before taking over as manager, said he’s not sure about his future.
“Closings happen. You’ve got to be in the business to make money,” he said.
Customers were trickling in Monday afternoon, picking up a variety of items. Most of the products lining the shelves will be sent to other stores in the chain, said Zak Sclar.
Many mourned the loss of the local small grocery.
“I’ve been shopping here for years. I love this place,” said Joyce Walsh of Roxbury. “Everyone is great and friendly, and I know where everything is.”
Others, who declined to be identified, said they will miss stopping in just to pick up a few items without standing in long lines.
Sclar said he regretted the closing, but the store must be stronger to stay in business.
He said the company is always looking to grow and is currently considering a couple of other locations.
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