Dive Brief:
- Choice Market, the upscale convenience retailer that became one of the faces of the urban c-store trend, is ceasing operations, CEO Mike Fogarty announced via LinkedIn on Monday.
- Choice, which operated five convenience stores in the Denver area, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May after seeing its sales fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While Fogarty said in an interview with C-Store Dive last month that the company would restructure and continue operating, that plan is over, and Choice is “closing its doors for good,” Fogarty said in the announcement.
- Choice’s rise and fall underscores the difficulties that urban convenience store retailers — which prioritize food and merchandise over fuel in population-dense markets — have faced over the past few years.
Dive Insight:
After debuting in late 2017, Choice grew to five stores last year, and was even dabbling in autonomous, small-format Mini Mart locations that attracted millions in funding.
As it battled bankruptcy, the company intended to offload all but one of its full-format convenience stores and mainly focus on these small-format locations. Operations were expected to get back up and running within the next six to nine months, Fogarty recently said in an interview.
It’s unclear why that plan failed, but the reorganization will not go through. According to its bankruptcy filing, Choice was “plagued by the rising costs of goods and labor as inflation drove prices up,” and the company couldn’t recover.
In his announcement on Monday, Fogarty thanked Choice’s employees and suppliers, as well as his friends and family members, for their support.
“The past seven years have been some [of] the most challenging and yet rewarding of my life,” he said. “I am hopeful that Choice made our industry think differently about what it means to push boundaries and innovate for the next generation who values quality, health, and convenience.”
Convenience retailers that dabbled in the urban format in recent years have struggled. Kum & Go and QuikTrip both shuttered fuel-less c-stores earlier this year, while Chicago-based Foxtrot abruptly ceased operations in April before filing for bankruptcy and reopening under new ownership.
