Communication Builds Our Community
Communication Builds Our Community
Second Aldi Location Opened This Week
Lake Wales' second Aldi grocery store opened with a rush of customers this week, joining a the recently opened Hutson's Grocery and Ollie's Discount department store as the newest businesses on the city's growing east side. The slow-motion whirl of grocery retailers in the area has perplexed shoppers for years, as the history shows.
The Aldi store occupies a portion of the former Winn Dixie at 1860 State Road 60 East. A portion of the former store was separated as is available as an independent lease. Aldi operates a second store on US 27 north at the intersection of Thompson Nursery Road and plans to open 225 stores nationwide this year.
Ollie's Discount, which opened last November, offers a limited selection of groceries along with other merchandise.
Hutson's features a changing offering of deeply-discounted bulk-purchase groceries, including frozen and canned foods. It's located in a space once occupied by a Food Lion store. Shortly after opening that store the North Carolina-based chain bought Kash 'n' Karry, which operated in the space now occupied by Ollie's. Ollie's offers a limited space devoted to groceries, along with other merchandise.
The popular Winn-Dixie store was part of a larger purchase of the Southeast Grocers chain by German-owned Aldi, which operates a distribution center in Haines City. Less than a year after the purchase and after beginning the conversion of multiple stores to new Aldi locations, the company back-tracked and sold many of the stores to a new investment group which will continue to operate them under Winn-Dixie and Harvey's flags.
Fans of the former Lake Wales Winn-Dixie store are now forced to travel to the nearest location in Dundee.
C&S Wholesale Grocers is a part of the new consortium that re-purchased the Winn-Dixie brand. They also operate Grand Union and Piggly Wiggly supermarkets in other regions of the country.
Jacksonville-based Winn-Dixie, founded in 1925, had operated a store in Lake Wales for more than 60 years, moving first from its original downtown location to the then-new Lake Wales Plaza on SR 60 West before moving again to the eastside location. With the loss of the local store, fans of the grocery chain will be forced to travel to other locations in Dundee and Haines City.
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