Johnnie’s Closing 10 stores; Stop & Shop to Reopen in Medford Location

All 10 Johnnie’s Foodmaster supermarkets are closing, not just the six being taken over by Whole Foods Market by Nov. 30, and a seventh store — in Medford — will reopen as a Stop & Shop.

Hilco Merchant Resources, based in Illinois, said Johnnie’s has started offering discounts of up to 30 percent on all food, beverages, household products, and general merchandise as the business starts to wind down after 65 years, The Boston Globe reported Nov. 3.

Late Friday, Nov. 2, Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. said it has entered into an agreement to take over the Medford Johnnie’s lease and “quickly convert” the location into a Stop & Shop by the end of the year. The location is 471 Salem St.

Stop & Shop has a current store in Medford, at 471 Fellsway. There are two superstores in neighboring Malden.

A spokesman for Johnnie’s declined to comment to The Globe about the fate of its remaining stores — in Lynn, Whitman and Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville, just across the border from Arlington

Also on Nov. 2, Whole Foods said its purchase of Johnnie’s stores in South Weymouth, Arlington, Charlestown, Brookline, Melrose and on Beacon Street in Somerville will close Nov. 30.

The stores will be renovated and reopened as Whole Foods supermarkets by September, the company said.

Employees at those Johnnie’s Foodmaster stores will be interviewed for jobs at the new Whole Foods locations, the Austin, Texas, grocer told The Globe.

Stop & Shop promised to do the same for workers at the Medford store.

The sale of the six leases to Whole Foods was official last month.

Johnnie’s owner John DeJesus also said the deal came at a good time for his business.

“I am confident that we have found the best partner that offers the most positive outcome not only for our employees but for the communities as well,” DeJesus said in a statement released Oct. 26.

Hilco Merchant Resources, an Illinois-based company whose services include liquidation, said it is beginning closing sales at all 10 Johnnie’s Foodmaster supermarkets. That would include the one in Somerville, at Arlington’s border, that was thought to be staying open.

Last month, Chelsea-based Johnnie’s, one of the last family-run urban grocers in Massachusetts, said it was closing six supermarkets by the end of November and selling the leases to Whole Foods Market. Those sales included the Johnnie’s on Mass. Ave. in Arlington.

– YourArlington.com