Fresh & Easy closing up shop in Burbank

Walking into Fresh & Easy on the corner of Verdugo Avenue and Reese Place on Monday afternoon, Burbank resident Dave Forrest found the produce section picked practically clean.

A display under a banner inviting customers to go bananas for the yellow fruit at 25 cents a piece was empty, so too were neighboring green flats that once held the other components of fruit salad. Forrest looked stunned — he raised arms to his side in a questioning shrug.

Across town later that night, just before 9 p.m., banners and signs at the Fresh & Easy Express on Victory Boulevard announced “store closing” and “everything must go.” New store hours were posted — 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. instead of 6 a.m. to midnight — but a few last-minute customers were being turned away. One couple conferred and decided to go to Ralphs across the street.

Last week, a spokesman for the Fresh & Easy grocery chain told the Los Angeles Times that the company would be winding down its operations. The company operates 97 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona — two of them are in Burbank — and has struggled in recent years.

Both Burbank locations have posted discounts of 10% to 30% off original prices and both are operating under the same new store hours. Signs at cash registers warn that all sales are final.

Forrest, who said he often stops by the store on Verdugo for last-minute items, was surprised by news of the closing.

“I always thought this place was a gold mine,” he said in the parking lot, his grocery bag with a quart of ice cream by his side, adding that it was always busy and made “a nice addition to the neighborhood.”

Founded in 2006 by British supermarket giant Tesco, the company has actually had a rocky history, according to its September 2013 filing for bankruptcy protection. Between 2008 and 2012, the company “averaged $22 million in losses per month and was never able to generate a profit,” the document states.

Brendan Wonnacott, a then-spokesman for the El Segundo-based chain, told the Times last week that Fresh & Easy doesn’t have enough cash and couldn’t obtain financing to continue operating the business. State-mandated layoff notices have gone out to about 3,000 employees.

News of the Fresh & Easy closures comes on the heels of an announcement last month that the Pacific Northwest grocery chain Haggen would be closing its Southern California stores, including a former Albertsons on Hollywood Way and Verdugo that it took over earlier this year as part of a mega expansion.

“Haggen lasted about 11 minutes,” said Robert Vincent, chairman of the Burbank Civic Pride Committee during a meeting Monday night, adding that he was concerned about the workers.

Albertsons received approval to hire the Haggen employees, but it’s not clear what will happen to Fresh & Easy workers. The manager at the Verdugo location said he was not authorized to speak to the media and could not confirm when, exactly, the store would be closing.

While the produce sections, refrigerators and freezer cases at the Verdugo Avenue Fresh & Easy were largely empty on Monday, a sign announced that “huge truckloads” of inventory would be arriving that night.

Reached for comment this week, Wonnacott said he no longer represents the company and isn’t sure if anyone is responding to media inquiries. Phone calls and emails to Fresh & Easy had not been returned as of Tuesday afternoon.

Though no longer a company representative, Wonnacott said he thought the stores would be closing over the next couple of weeks as inventory gets sold off.