After a vote by members of the Haywood Road Market and an April 25 meeting of its board, the West Asheville co-op has closed and will be closing out its inventory.
In an e-mail to its members, the Haywood Road Market board of directors announced today that the market is closing after its lease was terminated by the owners of the Bledsoe Building. The co-op had a history of financial difficulties, culminating in late rent payments and a notice of eviction in March.
The market will hold a going-out-of-business sale on Saturday and Sunday, and the board has tentative plans for a farewell party.
The e-mail announcement is below.
— Brian Postelle, staff writer
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IT’S OFFICIAL: CO-OP CLOSES
Going out of Business Sale – this weekend!!
May 2 and 3 12pm-4pm
Hello Haywood Road Market owners and friends,
The owners voted to close the Co-op on April 21st, and on April 29th, the Co-op’s Board of Directors voted to uphold the owner vote. Yesterday, April 30, 2009, was the official last day the co-op was open. We want the closing to be graceful, simple, and quick. We’ve set an aggressive schedule and need help with this process, so naturally the Board is reaching out to the owners of the business (yes, that’s you).
We have volunteers coming in this weekend to host a “Going out of Business” sale and will be open both Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4pm. There are many good people in our community, some individuals and some small businesses, that have given loans or their products to the co-op with the promise that they’ll get repaid. We want nothing more than to repay as many of these folks as possible. Do to this, we need you to come in and shop (and if you can help volunteer as well, that’s icing)! There are great deals to be had, so don’t miss out!! If we don’t sell off our inventory, we will have more limited hours. Stay tuned via email or signs at the store for this…
Oh, also stay tuned for a Going Away party – that’s right, gotta go out on a good note! Final (and short) member meeting, open forum for those interested in a buying club, music, potluck, and more! Tentatively set for Friday, May 15 and will confirm soon.
Much love to you and our beautiful community!
HRM Board of Directors
The Moral of this story is you have to keep a store clean, Keep the merchandise fresh, and that just slapping a Co-Op Sticker on it won’t save it if its poorly ran.
Sorry they are going out of business. But Earthfare is a short drive. So West Asheville will still be served by a healthfood supermarket store.
Just noticed that they have rubbers there.
I suspect a major pitfall for natural food co-ops around the country has been the success of the organic local movement. We can now patronize growers directly at farmers’ markets and even WalMart carries (Chinese) organic food, while mainstream groceries stock organic and local and the green-leaning food chains like EarthFare and Greenlife enjoy economies of scale that co-ops can’t achieve. The good news is we are winning. The bad news is we are losing the Haywood Road Market and the community it created.
It is a shame this happened. I think there will be more local business closings this year all around Asheville. The Co-op was always in a strange location. Great for West Asheville people but bad for people driving. Personally I never shopped there because the parking situation seemed grim.
locally crafted, hand-made, organic rubbers?
Personally I never shopped there because the parking situation seemed grim.
Hmmm. My store is in that building and there’s tons of parking… unless you want to be right in front of the door.
driving through that intersection makes me cringe, though.