After months of missed deadlines and broken promises to renovate and reopen six low-cost grocery stores in underserved areas, the operator of Chicago's Save-A-Lot stores promised city officials in January that they would do better.
“We took your comments about a 'hard reset' seriously,” Yellow Banana CEO Joe Canfield wrote in a Jan. 31 email to Chicago's top planning and development official, Sierre Boatright.
Five months later, Yellow Banana still hasn't achieved its goal.
Under its contract with the city, the company was approved for $13.5 million in grant funding and given 24 months to renovate six stores. Now, more than halfway through the contract, all six stores are closed and none have been renovated, leaving the company with 10 months to complete the work.
It's been a tumultuous year for Yellow Banana, as the company has been plagued by financial and legal issues and dozens of schedule changes, while residents in areas without grocery stores wonder when the company will deliver on its promises.
More than $26 million in total funding has been approved for the project, including tax increment financing, loans and federal grants. The tax increment financing won't be disbursed until the store is completed. It's unclear how much of the roughly $7 million in federal funding has already been disbursed.
In addition to the original contract, an additional $4.8 million in city funds was approved for the construction of the two new stores.
The only Save-A-Lot store operating in Chicago is in Englewood, but it was renovated and is not included in the six-store contract with the city.
All six stores are closed for construction, and their opening dates have been repeatedly postponed for more than a year.
About two years ago, Yellow Banana made headlines when it was swooped in to reopen the former Save-A-Lot in Gresham after Aldi abruptly closed the store. The company was officially contracted to renovate six Save-A-Lot stores by April 2023.
After a “hard reset” meeting with Boatright, the city's planning and development director, Canfield told Boatright that the “perceived communication issues” had been resolved.
He then assured Councilman Ronnie Mosley (D. 21st District) that the Morgan Park store was on schedule, according to correspondence obtained by the Sun-Times.
The grand opening was scheduled for Wednesday.
But last week, the store's doors were closed and no one was to be seen inside or outside.
“When I spoke with them last week, they were still in the works,” Mosley told the Sun-Times in an interview. “Paving and landscaping the site has been delayed because of the rain.”
“I don't think they understand the whole process and don't realize that further permits will be needed,” he said.
The Morgan Park store is scheduled to open in early July.
Canfield said Gresham and West Garfield Park are top priorities due to a lack of food options in the area.
The initial plan was to close one store at a time “to minimize the negative impact to the area and to avoid placing undue strain on Yellow Banana's cash flow,” a Yellow Banana official told city staff in an October email obtained by the Sun-Times.
In Gresham, residents can look forward to a grocery store opening at 7908 S. Halsted starting in July 2022.
Most recently, Councilman David Moore said that after issues with the floors, the store would be open by Thanksgiving 2023. The store won't open past Thanksgiving, and Yellow Banana has pledged to have this store and its West Garfield Park location open by April.
In between the delays, the company was sued by a produce distributor in Ohio, sold all of its Florida stores and closed two stores in Illinois.
Yellow Banana did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Sun-Times, despite previously promising to provide an updated timeline.
Moore said the Gresham store's opening has been pushed back to the end of August, more than a year after Canfield told a hopeful audience at a Gresham community meeting that the store would open in July 2023.
Financial problems continued and Yellow Banana had to take out new loans, Moore said.
“It was frustrating when, between Thanksgiving and opening in the spring, we ran into not only flooring issues, but other structural issues,” he said. “That's normal, but with the money they had and [building] already [former] Save A Lot stores. But having good merchandise is better than nothing.”
The Save-a-Lot at 420 South Pulaski Road closed for renovations in fall 2023. It has not yet reopened.
Owen Ziliak/Sun-Times/Owen Ziliak/Sun-Times
In West Garfield Park, residents are still living without a full-service grocery store.
Angela Taylor, health coordinator for the Garfield Park Community Council, who was in the meeting with Yellow Banana, said the store at 420 S. Pulaski Road is expected to open around mid-June.
Taylor said he sympathized with the delays in setting up and installing signs at the West Garfield Park store, but was unaware that all the other stores were closing.
“This is a renovation, not a new store opening, so it doesn't make any sense to me,” she said.
Taray Thompson, founder of the Westside Block Club Association and whose family lives next door to the store, said his relatives haven't seen any construction or activity in recent weeks.
Thompson and Taylor have not been keen on Save-A-Lot remaining in the area, with Taylor advocating for a locally owned grocery store.
“Summer is almost here and there's no grocery store where my 96-year-old grandmother and her daughters can walk out the back door and buy produce and groceries,” Thompson said.
“If the store isn't ready by the end of this year, many in the area would rather wait for a new store to be built at the Save-A-Lot location than just wait,” he added.
Taylor said he is working with the city on plans to build another grocery store in the neighborhood.
She still expects stores to open, but says there's a general lack of planning at Yellow Banana.
She said last year Yellow Banana considered bringing seniors from the Neighborhood Living Center to a pop-up grocery store that Taylor helped run while Save-A-Lot was being renovated.
But no arrangements were made in advance, Taylor said.
“One day we were sitting in the grocery store and a van drove up and asked, 'Where are the seniors?' And I said, 'What seniors?'” Taylor said. “They just didn't have a plan.”
She escorted Yellow Banana representatives to the senior center and introduced them to the resident coordinator.
In the end, the company never took the elderly to the grocery store.
“It was bad timing,” she said. “These things have to be planned in advance.”
