Sheridan Fruit Company, one of Portland’s oldest independent grocery stores, has officially closed its doors after 110 years in business.
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A store employee confirmed Thursday that this will be the Southeast Portland grocery store’s last week. Sheridan is located at 409 SE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and is open until 5 p.m. Friday.
“We’ve been honored to be a part of your kitchens, your holiday traditions and your daily lives since 1916,” Sheridan said in a statement. “For more than a century, we’ve been proud to support local farmers and serve the city we love.”
The grocery store is one of the few remaining remnants of Portland’s Produce Row, a once-thriving network of mom-and-pop grocery stores throughout the Middle East District.
For more than 110 years, Sheridan has weathered two world wars, the Great Depression and more than one global pandemic, starting with the Spanish Flu in the early 20th century.
But Sheridan leaders told The Oregonian/OregonLive in September that the store had struggled to stay afloat for years since the COVID-19 pandemic, with concerns including inventory issues, the loss of wholesale customers and reduced foot traffic. Rumors of a closure began circulating last year as customers reported empty shelves and a lackluster meat and bulk department.
Still, the grocer remains optimistic, with plans to focus on specialty assets like delis, bulk sections and imported Italian products.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Justin Barwick, Sheridan’s treasurer and son of company president Anne Barwick, said last year. “We’ve been here a long time and are absolutely committed to staying here.”
Sheridan has been in the family for four generations, founded by John Sheridan in 1916 and purchased by brothers Sam and Larry Poleo thirty years later.
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Read the original article at oregonlive.com.