PAGEDALE, Mo. – Less than six months after opening, the Fields Foods store in Pagedale is closed. Signs on the doors say, “The grocery store will reopen under new ownership and management.”
“Yeah. Big surprise. They just opened,” said Leonard Fields.
Leonard was stopping for lunch Friday when he learned of the closure.
“Is it frustrating? Of course it is,” said Chris Krehmeyer, president and CEO of Beyond Housing, a non-profit community development organization.
The organization owned the building that Fields Foods occupied on Page.
“I don’t know the behind-the-scenes of Fields and what happened,” Krehmeyer said. “All I know is the shelves weren’t being stocked the way they were from the grand opening, which was wonderful and marvelous and full of energy. Something happened that changed.”
Fields Foods owner Chris Goodson said he is negotiating the sale of all the company’s locations to an employee ownership group. He said Pagedale deserves a grocery store and thinks there needs to be a regional effort to look at a different model for food deserts moving forward beyond an individual grocer.
“If you want to invest in a community like ours, you can’t bring a Chesterfield economic model to make a grocery store work,” Krehmeyer said.
He said he is now focused on finding a new company to bring a grocery store to Pagedale.
“We’re talking to anybody and everybody who’s got interest in and then can deliver on a high-quality grocery store,” Krehmeyer said. “Good product. Good price. Good customer service. Our community will support a grocery store like that.”
Leonard did, but Friday, and for the time being, he’s having to find another option.
“Where else you gonna go? Ain’t nowhere else around here,” he said. “You already on Page. Wellston or back up to QuikTrip by 170.”