Walt’s Food Centers is closing its South Holland store, a community where the small family-owned chain started nearly nine decades ago.
In a letter posted for customers Monday outside the store, 16145 State St., the company said the store will close Sept. 28 and it is working to relocate employees to other Walt’s locations.
“This decision was not made lightly and was influenced by the current market conditions and the significant investment that would be required to improve and maintain our aging facility,” the letter reads.
Walt’s said it has started working with South Holland leadership “to determine the best way for this property to be redeveloped in a way that adds to the vitality” of the suburb.
“We are incredibly grateful for the support and loyalty you have shown us over the years,” the letter, taped to entrance doors, reads. “It has been our honor to serve you and your families for many generations.”
Walt’s also has stores in Beecher, Crete, Homewood and Dyer, Indiana.
The letter notes the location “has been more than just a business; it has been a part of this special community where our journey began more than 87 years ago.”
Walt’s closed a store in Tinley Park, 16039 S. Harlem Ave., in June 2021. Walt’s had been an anchor in Tinley Park Plaza since 1984.
In late 2018, Walt’s closed a store in Frankfort, 20825 S. LaGrange Road.
Outside the South Holland store Tuesday, Aubrey Howard said she does not patronize that store as often as she once did.
“Maybe every two or three weeks, but I have been stopping more at Jewel,” which has a South Holland store less than a mile away, on 162nd Street.
Howard said one reason she hasn’t shopped at Walt’s as often has been the store’s appearance.
“It’s just sort of run-down looking, not really dirty or anything, but just not as clean as I remember,” the South Holland resident said.
A message left Tuesday with Walt’s was not returned.
Don De Graff, South Holland’s mayor, said he has been close friends with the Lagestee family, who own and operate Walt’s, for many years, and said he was contacted by them a little more than a week ago about the South Holland store.
“The bottom line is the grocery business has become very difficult with all the competition, and the investment they would have to make they were debating,” De Graff said. “They love South Holland and wanted to stay.”
At the northeast corner of 162nd and State Street, just east of South Suburban College, the property is very valuable and owned by the Lagestees, he said.
“We are working with them on future endeavors,” the mayor said.
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De Graff said the coming departure from South Holland of a store that began as a fruit stand is tough to swallow.
“As much as I hate to see Walt’s close it’s also an opportunity for us to develop that property with a new corner,” he said.
De Graff has lived in South Holland his entire life, and recalls going to the fruit stand with his parents as a child.
“At that time, South Holland had rich soil and very good farmland, and most of the town was farms,” De Graff said.
Founder Walt Lagestee would have his sons go to Chicago to buy fresh fruits and produce for the stand, a tradition that stayed even after the family built a store at is existing location, De Graff said. The Lagestees later expanded the South Holland store, he said.
He said the Lagestees came to realize that, with margins in the grocery business razor-thin, the sort of the investment they would need to make in the South Holland store was not worth it.
“Between the Amazons and Sam’s Club and Costcos of the world it has become much more difficult to compete,” De Graff said.