Downtown residents who have been anxiously awaiting the January opening of Matherne’s Supermarket will have to wait a little longer. The opening previously announced for Monday, Jan. 5, has now been pushed back to Thursday, Jan. 22, due to a variety of logistical issues that need to be ironed out. Prior to the latest delay, the grocery store had previously hoped to be open by October or November.
“All the pieces of the puzzle had to line up right and it just took a little longer than we anticipated,” Toni Matherne says. “But the 22nd is a solid date. All the product is coming in next week.”
When the 16,000-square-foot grocery store opens on the ground floor of the 440 on Third development—in what was once the Capital One Building—it will be the first full-service supermarket downtown in half a century. City leaders, downtown advocates and residents alike have heralded its coming as a milestone in the ongoing renaissance of downtown.
Because the project is so new and different, however, it has been fraught with challenges.
One of the biggest, for instance, is employee parking. Matherne says the store is still trying to work out some issues related to where employees will park, as the parking lot has 24 spaces for customers but not for store workers.
“We’re still trying to work out those logistics,” he says. “We think we have it figured out, though.”
When the store opens it will feature a juice and smoothie bar, as well as a full-service meat counter, fresh seafood and a new line of private-label organic products. —Stephanie Riegel
