Fresh Market to open Tulsa store at 81st and Yale
BY KYLE ARNOLD World Staff Writer
Thursday, February 02, 2012
2/02/12 at 6:08 AM
Read more about
what The Fresh
Market offers at each
of its stores.
A space that once housed a bookstore in south Tulsa will become home to a gourmet grocer that's entering the metro area.
The Fresh Market will open a store at 81st Street and Yale Avenue, former site of bankrupt bookseller Borders.
The Greensboro, N.C.-based supermarket chain plans to spend $1.25 million on renovations to the 24,000-square-foot space.
"We have a distinctive concept that rarely competes directly with other food retailers," store spokeswoman Lara Bronstein said via email. "With smaller, more intimate stores, classical music and soft lighting, with the aromas of freshly baked bread and coffee, our stores simply provide a unique shopping experience that customers can't find anywhere else."
An opening date for the store has not been announced. A store for the building's size typically employs about 90 people, Bronstein said.
The Fresh Market website describes the retailer as a specialty grocery store providing "high-quality products" and "a high level of customer service."
Some of the company's signature features include an expansive produce section and a fresh meat and seafood market.
Fresh Market has 111 stores in 21 states, mostly in the Southeast and Northeast, but it has been expanding quickly in the Midwest.
The company recently announced plans for a store in Wichita and also has opened a market in Little Rock.
Borders closed its south Tulsa location in April, two months after the struggling chain filed for bankruptcy protection and eventually folded. The space has been left vacant.
Fresh Market will be competing with a new Whole Foods Market store scheduled to open in 2013 a mile south near 91st Street and Yale Avenue.
The 81st Street and Yale Avenue intersection also has a Food Pyramid grocery store.
The Fresh Market
8015 S. Yale Ave.
Opening: Unknown
Employees: About 90
Headquarters: Greensboro, N.C.
Locations: 111 stores in 21 states
Original Print Headline: Entering the market
Kyle Arnold 918-581-8380
kyle.arnold@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Customers enter and exit a Fresh Market store in Greensboro, N.C. Fresh Market is planning to enter the Tulsa area by renovating the site of a former Borders store at 81st Street and Yale Avenue. Details, including a planned opening date, have not been finalized. Bloomberg file
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