Ohio Grocer Pledged To Revive Save A Lots With Millions In City Funding. But Empty Shelves And Closed Stores Persist

CHICAGO — Renee Nowlin doesn’t shop at her neighborhood Save A Lot in South Chicago.

The store, 2858 E. 83rd St., frequently has bare shelves, “questionable” meat products and “security issues” in the unlit parking lot at night, Nowlin said. Instead, Nowlin treks to Pete’s Market on 118th Street and Avenue O, a Jewel-Osco in Hyde Park and stores in Hammond, Indiana, for groceries, she said. 

“If there was a grocery store that I felt comfortable enough within the community, I probably would shop there more,” Nowlin said. “At other stores in other communities, the products and the prices are better.”

South and West side shoppers told Block Club Save A Lot has poor-quality food, run-down stores and often-empty shelves. They said they want the same high-quality, reasonably priced grocery options easy to find elsewhere in the city. 

Yellow Banana, an Ohio-based company that owns and operates stores under the Save A Lot name, swept into the city last year vowing to revamp the “beat to all hell” stores, including Nowlin’s in South Chicago.

“What we inherited does not meet our operational or moral standards,” Yellow Banana co-founder, Michael Nance, said last year. “We know what we stepped into. We know how critical access to high-quality food at affordable prices is in this community, and we’re committed to delivering that.” 

But nearly a year after Yellow Banana was approved for $26.5 million in funding to renovate six neglected South and West Side stores, some neighbors, local officials and community organizers say the company is falling short of its promises.

An Auburn Gresham Save A Lot set to open in July has been delayed for months.

A West Pullman store has yet to be remodeled, despite claims to the local alderman construction would begin in August.

A West Garfield Park location shut down 18 months ago remains closed, and its massive renovation won’t start until the Auburn Gresham store is finished, a community leader said. 

Other Yellow Banana-owned stores not included in the city financing have run into trouble as well. A Washington Park Save A Lot was closed indefinitely in May after break-ins. A controversial Englewood store that quietly opened at a former Whole Foods often has empty shelves and few customers, neighbors said. 

The South Chicago Save A Lot store hasn’t been a reliable source for quality products — and nothing has changed with Yellow Banana in charge, Nowlin said. 

“Save A Lot is a place of necessity for some people in the community, and Yellow Banana is not living up to our standards,” Nowlin said. “I have the opportunity to get in my car and drive to other places, but there are people in the community that don’t have that flexibility. They received all that money, and we have not seen anything that has changed. It’s very frustrating.”

Yellow Banana officials did not respond to Block Club’s multiple requests for comment.

‘All The Projects On Delay’

Yellow Banana was approved for $13.5 million in tax-increment financing and another $13 million in New Market Tax Credits and private funding last year to rehabilitate Save A Lots that had closed or fallen into disrepair.

That includes the South Chicago Save A lot on 83rd Street, plus the stores in West Pullman, 10700 S. Halsted St.; West Lawn, 4439 W. 63rd; South Shore, 7240 S. Stony Island Ave.; Auburn Gresham, 7909 S. Halsted St.; and West Garfield Park, 420 S. Pulaski Road.

All six stores must remain open for “no less than 10 years,” Tim Jeffries, deputy planning and development commissioner, told the Sun-Times. If a store is closed or sold during that time, “the developer must return all previously dispersed funds to the city for all six stores,” Jeffries said.

Yellow Banana has 38 stores under the Save A Lot name in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Jacksonville and Dallas, as well as its stores in progress in Chicago.

Yellow Banana hosted a meeting in early June to introduce Auburn Gresham neighbors to a “reimagined” 79th Street store, the first of the six to be renovated, owners said at the time.

The reopened store would be a “quality neighborhood grocery store neighbors can be proud of,” Joe Canfield, CEO of Yellow Banana, said at the time. Owners planned “a complete transformation” with a new roof, parking lot, refrigeration, floors and lighting, Canfield said. 

The store was set to reopen by mid-July, Canfield said.

In August, a company spokesperson told Block Club the store would instead open in mid-to-late October. “Delays with [city] permits” stalled plans for a summer grand opening, but those permits have since been approved, the company spokesperson said.

The store still hasn’t opened.

Carlos Nelson, executive director at the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, told Block Club he and other Auburn Gresham leaders have a weekly virtual meeting with Yellow Banana executives to discuss the future of the 79th Street Save A Lot. Yellow Banana is partnering with organizations like the development corporation to connect with the community, Nelson said. 

“Here in Auburn Gresham, we’re telling a really good story, and I’m trying to act as an ambassador for the other communities since we are working closely with Yellow Banana,” Nelson said. 

Yellow Banana was “looking at a Thanksgiving opening, but that’s looking challenged now” for the 79th Street store, Nelson said.

Executives hoped to have the store open “leading up to Thanksgiving week,” but a combination of construction delays and break-ins at stores like the Washington Park location “has put all the projects on delay,” Nelson said. 

When Yellow Banana opens the Auburn Gresham location, the company can move on to renovating the West Pullman and West Garfield Park stores, Nelson said. 

Missed Deadlines And Construction Delays

Unlike in Auburn Gresham, Yellow Banana has not been transparent or communicative about the delayed renovation of the West Pullman store at 107th and Halsted streets, Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st) told Block Club.

Company leaders hosted a community meeting with neighbors in June about changes coming to the West Pullman Save A Lot, Mosley said. At the time, Yellow Banana told neighbors they’d close the store “in mid-July or early August at the latest” to begin renovations, Mosley said. 

“That deadline came and went,” Mosley said. 

Mosley persistently tried to schedule another community meeting with Yellow Banana, but the company “ghosted” him and he “still doesn’t know if they have anything on the books to meet in person,” Mosley said. 

After recently contacting the company for an update, a Yellow Banana official told the alderman they plan to do landscaping and painting at the Halsted building on Nov. 6, Mosley said. Renovations will “pick back up next year” when construction season resumes, Mosley said. 

For the time being, neighbors continue to shop at the un-renovated store, Mosley said. Whenever construction does start, it will take nine weeks to complete the overhaul, Mosley said. 

Neighbors told Yellow Banana in June they would “give them a chance,” despite Save A Lot’s disappointing history, Mosley said.

Now, the company is “starting at a deficit” with the community, he said.

“This doesn’t sit well with residents because part of building that trust is the community trusting them to do the job, and when issues come up, you let us know. Right now, they’re not doing that,” Mosley said. “There are some delays I automatically accept with construction, but we are anxiously waiting because they still have not solved their immediate issues of quality and so forth.”

‘We Shouldn’t Have To Settle For Less’

Princess Shaw, founder of Light Up Lawndale, has long advocated for better-quality goods and services at the West Garfield Park Save A Lot, she said. 

The city forced the store to close in February 2022 after a rat infestation, leaving the neighborhood with no grocery store. Yellow Banana took over the store’s business license later that month and closed it earlier this year to launch a $2 million renovation.

The renovation remains at a standstill, owing to the delays in Auburn Gresham, Nelson said.

Neighbors will have to “wait and see” how their Save A Lot operates under new owners. But Shaw said she is concerned by how Yellow Banana has set up shop in Englewood. 

The city quietly inked a deal with Yellow Banana to take over the closed Whole Foods at 832 W. 63rd St., outraging neighbors who did not want a Save A Lot and demanded a grocer that would offer fresh food and clean conditions.

Despite promising transparency and community input, the company opened the Englewood Save A Lot with little notice in May.

The grocer entered Englewood “as if they are a raft to a sinking person when in actuality, they should be coming in to be a good neighbor,” Shaw said.

“How are you willing to bring about change if you’re going to continue to repeat the same systems others have done for many years?” Shaw said. “That’s showing that you’re a monopolizing company coming into communities and doing whatever you want.”

On a recent Friday at the Englewood store, shelves were nearly cleared and the hot food bar sections – once touted as a place where local businesses could set up shop – remained closed. Barely any customers entered or exited the store.

Establishing trust within communities by working with neighbors and providing quality goods should be top of mind for executives, Shaw said.  

“We shouldn’t have to settle for less than in a grocery store, and this is a place that we have to frequent in order to feed ourselves and our families, which consists of older people and babies,” Shaw said. “Why don’t they have enough respect for us to make sure we’re healthy?”

‘The Proof Is Still In The Pudding’

In Auburn Gresham, local organizers are establishing a “playbook” that retailers like Yellow Banana can follow to avoid repeating the wrongs done in Englewood, Nelson said. 

“What we’re doing in Auburn Gresham is laying out a blueprint or a playbook on how Yellow Banana or any other regional or national retailer should come into our Chicago neighborhoods and respectfully engage our neighborhoods and work with community-based organizations, neighbors and faith community to plan out and strategize what the business will look like,” Nelson said. “That way, there’s a feeling of ownership and feeling like this is going to be successful.”

Nelson called Yellow Banana an “an active and engaged partner to Auburn Gresham.” The company recently hosted hiring and vendor fairs with the community and has agreed to hire a “community engagement manager” to interact with neighbors, Nelson said. 

“But the proof is still in the pudding,” Nelson said. “We definitely need to see how they operate.”

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