Downtown to lose Sunshine food store
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Sunshine Natural Market and Deli is closing and advertising 20 percent off most items left in the store. CASSANDRA HOTALING / RUTLAND HERALD |
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By Cristina Kumka Herald Staff - Published: January 14, 2009
Another small business owner will say farewell to Rutland's downtown and its loyal, but dwindling, base of customers by closing its doors next month.
The shelves at Sunshine Natural Market & Deli at 42-44 Center St. have long been bare and employees are stacking the last of the vitamins, fresh produce and all-natural toiletries on shelves.
"I would like help from the Rutland Herald to have a graceful closing and end to our 31 years," longtime owner Bruce Cullen said Tuesday. "We would like people to help us by buying the last of the inventory that's on the shelves."
But that help is coming too late.
Sunshine has been losing money every week for the past year, according to Cullen, because the store wasn't able to sell enough products to replenish the supply and pay the rent and utilities as it struggled to compete with larger supermarket chains that were drawing in the bulk of the store's customers.
Cullen is closing the more than three-decade-old Center Street institution and vacating the retail space by the end of next month, moving out of Vermont to pursue a video production business in Connecticut and New York.
He said he was leaving Vermont with the few thousand dollars he came to the state with — the result of having to borrow money to try and build his store's product line back up.
"This is an example of how the economy is now in America … this is what it leads to," Cullen said. "Now we can't make money anymore and now we can't stay."
The story of Sunshine's demise isn't unlike many other shops in the city's downtown and across the country that can no longer brace for economic downturns and compete with larger, more convenient stores with larger profits, more visibility and more customers, Cullen said.
"Someone needs to acknowledge that it's the small stores suffering now that are responsible for the trend that made natural foods so popular," Cullen said. "We care and we worked for all these years to build the market and educate people and we're the ones that lose."
Banners will be posted at the store by the end of this week announcing Sunshine's closing, according to Cullen.
News of the closure didn't resonate well with Tom Macaulay, executive director of the Rutland Redevelopment Authority. One of the incentives marketed to potential buyers of condominium units above the market, was the market itself, Macaulay said.
The long-term plan was to finalize a pending purchase and sales agreement for the three-floor building with the current owner, sell three units and then offset the market's rent with the profits, according to Macaulay.
"We were going to try to lower their rent," he said. "We hope they stay right where they are."
But Cullen said he can't wait until the purchase is finalized.
"We could pay nothing for rent and we'd still lose," Cullen said. "It's purely an inventory problem."
Cullen attributed the loss to Hannaford opening an entire natural foods store in February of last year.
On Monday, while the aisles at Sunshine were absent products and people, the Rutland Natural Food Market around the block on Wales Street was bustling.
Customer Sarah Butler of Rutland wasn't shocked by the news of Sunshine closing.
"People there weren't terribly polite," she said. "This store has much better produce and an indoor farmers' market every Saturday all year long."
Contact Cristina Kumka at cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com.
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