Earth Fare, 3312 Devine Street Suite B: February 2020 (Open Again) 6 comments
I didn't go there too often, but I liked Earth Fare. It was kind of in between The Fresh Market (one of my main go-tos) and Whole Foods, but without being obnoxious like Whole Foods.
As The State reported, the chain announced on 3 February 2020 that they were going into liquidation and closing all stores:
In a news release Monday, the Asheville-based company pointed to “challenges in the retail industry” that have kept the company from expanding and improving and have hindered “its ability to refinance its debt.”
“As a result, Earth Fare is not in a financial position to continue to operate on a go-forward basis. As such, we have made the difficult, but necessary decision to commence inventory liquidation sales while we continue to engage in a process to find potential suitors for our stores,” the company said in its release.
As of yesterday (16 February 2020), the store was still open, but I did not go inside to see how picked-over it was.
UPDATE 14 August 2020 -- The new owners are apparently about ready to reopen. The shelves are stocked with non-perishables, and they are hiring:
UPDATE 20 August 2020 -- Open again:
6 Responses to 'Earth Fare, 3312 Devine Street Suite B: February 2020 (Open Again)'
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Andrew
19 Feb 20 at 7:47 pm
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This spot was indeed a Winn-Dixie prior to Earth Fare renovating the space. I know it was still Winn-Dixie as late as the mid to late 90s. I think it closed when Winn-Dixie left Columbia altogether.
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Awww... I loved this place! So sad to see it go. Went shopping there about 2-3 weeks ago, got my last taste of their delicious snacks...
Paul
28 Feb 20 at 3:25 pm
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Mr BO
11 Apr 20 at 7:32 pm
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The new Earth Fare has relaunched their website and lists the old Columbia location as "Coming Soon."
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Even though this place has has been reopened now for about 4 years, which I am happy about, I thought I would give a shout out to it, as it really introduced Columbia and myself to organic food and what that really means. At the time it opened in 1999, beyond the Earth Fare in Charleston, which was the second Earth Fare store (I believe Columbia was the third Earth Fare), South Carolina and large swaths of the southeast were without any organic food options and it was an alien concept to many at the time. Rosewood Market was very small and off the radar to most at the time. And a lot of the small independent organic stores today started off geared more towards supplements and vitamins and then slowly grew more into organic food about the time when Earth Fare grew outside of Asheville. I first started shopping there in early 2001 and just personally found it to be an oasis because I had really started to comprehend fully the concept of how food is grown in the modern world and why quite frankly it sucked and largely still does! So anyway, it went downhill in substance a bit when the original owner Roger Derrough sold it in 2007 until its brief closing in 2020. He actually I believe is a small investor in this reincarnation now since 2020 and it has some of the original heart it did pre-2007 which I love. The people running it are not an interstate gas corporation as was the case 2012 to 2020. I know the prices can be high, by comparison to non-organics, but that is really a mess that can be traced back to the early 20th century chemical company takeover of farming leading to what we call now "conventional farming"....Sorry I guess I'm ranting. Anyway, I have soft spot for it and still enjoy shopping there when in town. Yeah Earth Fare!
Jason
3 Dec 24 at 7:22 pm
I have a recollection of reading in an old article some years ago that this was a Winn Dixie at one point (but I myself never shopped there) but I only went to Earth Fare once or twice...