Closing time for downtown Safeway

It is mostly just bargain hunters and well-wishers coming in now.

Customers have been stopping in to wish the staff the best and to take one last look at the Safeway in downtown Vernon which will close Saturday (Nov. 23) at 6 p.m.

All that’s left on the nearly empty shelves are items nobody wants or those that are simply not a good enough deal.

The store on 30th Avenue, owned by Sobeys, has been open for 54 years, but will be shut down and converted into a new FreshCo, with an opening next spring.

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Many of the staff have been there a long time, some who will be transferring to Vernon’s other Safeway in the Vernon Square, but others who face an uncertain future.

Heather Padden has worked at the til for 13 years, and admits she’s had a special bond with her customers.

“I love my customers. They are my people, they are my family, so after 13 years I know them all by name, I know what they like, I know what they smoke. I pack up their little groceries. I know how they like everything done,” she told Vernon Matters during an appreciation event last month.

The store’s loyal customers have included many seniors who live nearby in the cluster of retirement homes.

They will soon have to find a new place to get their groceries.

Safeway will continue to provide pharmacy services out of a temporary trailer on the south side of their site.

The FreshCo store will look totally different and have a different mandate: to provide customers with the freshest foods at the lowest prices.

Safeways in Kamloops (Sahali), Kelowna (Dilworth), Powell River, Williams Lake and 100 Mile House are also undergoing conversions to FreschCo’s.