ELLICOTTVILLE – The price of getting groceries looks like it
will be going up for residents in Ellicottville.
Quality Markets, the only major grocery store in the small ski
town, is poised to close by Feb. 15. This will leaving many
Ellicottvillians to find a new grocery store, with the closest ones
in Springville and Salamanca.
All other Quality Markets, including the 13 in Western New York,
share the same fate as Ellicottville’s. The decision to close the
chain of grocery stores came days after Penn Traffic – parent
company of the chain – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov.
18.
Chris Allenson, manager of the Ellicottville location, deferred
comment to the company’s public relations firm, Eric Mower &
Associates.
A representative from Eric Mower & Associates could not be
reached by press time.
With the sudden announcement of the only grocery store in
Ellicottville closing, Brian McFadden, executive director of the
Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce, said work is being done to get a
new local grocer.
“At this point there isn’t anyone planning taking over at the
Quality Markets site,” McFadden said. “We have been actively
pursuing getting someone in the store. I think it is one of the
better stores of the chain and it has had a good volume of
customers.”
Since receiving word of the stores closing, McFadden said
officials at the chamber have been making calls to area grocers to
see if there is any interest in setting up at the Ellicottville
site.
McFadden declined to specify who the Ellicottville Chamber of
Commerce has called.
“At this point, we’re in the early stages and we are just
talking with people,” he said. “We definitely need a store here and
there is a good clientele here for one. We can’t not have a grocery
store during ski season, that’s for sure.”
The announcement of the store’s closing did not come as a
surprise to McFadden.
“This has happened before,” he said. “The timing was a surprise,
but the (Penn Traffic) corporation has always been in bad
shape.”
According to published reports, the chain’s closing will affect
more than 4,000 workers.
