Food Pavilion remains open in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Even though Brown & Cole Stores, LLC, is closing several locations in the state, Moses Lake customers will still be able to shop at the Food Pavilion.

The Bellingham-based grocery chain is closing the Okanogan Food Depot, the Burlington Thrifty Foods and Woodland Save-On Foods for various reasons, Public Affairs Director Sue Cole explained.

"In the case of the Okanogan Food Depot, basically we were Wal-Marted," Cole said. "Once Wal-Mart came in, the store was not viable anymore."

The company decided to close the Burlington store because it had outlived its "useful" life as the company becomes a smaller, more focused organization. The Woodland store closed for geographic, strategic reasons, as it was a stand-alone store without other Brown & Cole locations in the area.

The closures come after the company in November filed a Chapter 11 petition in a Seattle federal bankruptcy court. The petition provides the company the ability to reorganize its finances and operations.

As the store goes through its reorganization process, Cole said, the company is examining every store it has, but there are

no plans to close the Moses Lake location at this point.

"We're trying to become a smaller, better focused store, and that would mean having stores with geographic synergy," she said. "We do have stores in the Yakima Valley and Prosser, so Moses Lake fits into that area."

Cole said the closures of the three locations means Brown & Cole's total number of open stores decreases to 20 by the end of March. The grocery store company is using a liquidation company for the three closures to handle going out of business sales, she added.

"We are very optimistic," she said. "Per the reorganization process, we are putting together our plan for how we will look emerging from this sometime later this year, and that's where we are right now. There are a number of moving parts, but we are starting to put the pieces together."

Cole said the company is grateful for the support customers and employees have shown through the process.

"When we first announced our reorganization, we optimistically said it would be a fairly seamless process, a fairly transparent process for our employees, and we believe it has been to that case," she said. "Our stores are running smoothly and sales and customer counts have been growing, so things are looking good right now."