WINDSOR TERRACE — One of the neighborhood's few 24-hour supermarkets closed suddenly last week and shoppers fear it could be shuttered permanently.
A "closed for renovations" sign appeared Thursday at Market Fresh Supermarket, the largest grocery on northern Windsor Terrace's main commercial strip.
The store's voicemail system wasn't accepting messages Monday and a representative for store owner SRI Food Corp. could not be reached for comment.
There are no recent renovation permits on file with the Department of Buildings, according to city records.
The abrupt closure comes as grocery stores citywide are disappearing or endangered. In Gowanus, the Pathmark on 12th Street closed late last year. In Park Slope, developers plan to tear down a Key Food on Fifth Avenue and Baltic Street and replace it with a smaller store. Fairway Market recently emerged from bankruptcy.
Market Fresh, at 238 Prospect Park West between Windsor Place and Prospect Avenue, was originally a deli but expanded about six years ago into a full-service supermarket.
In recent months the 3,500 square foot store seemed to struggle to keep shelves fully stocked, shoppers said. The store stopped selling fresh meat and the quality of its produce declined, said regular customer Leola Olivarez.
She stopped by this past Wednesday and found only canned food for sale. The "closed for renovations" sign appeared the next morning, she said.
"They went from being fully stocked to being only about 70 percent stocked, then every once in a while [the shelves] would be completely bare," Olivarez said of the store's decline.
Though a new Key Food opened on Prospect Avenue in 2015 — replacing a larger store that closed in 2012 — the location is a long walk for shoppers who live on the northern end of Windsor Terrace, Olivarez said.
“Around that area, that's the only place we can go to, unless we go to five different stores," Olivarez said.
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