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Patrons to lose store -- and more
Folksy market helped bring neighbors together
Tuesday, May 11, 1999
By PHUONG LE
Matthew's Red Apple Market is the kind of a store where clerks deliver bags to front doors, where cashiers inquire about kids and pets and where parties are thrown so neighbors can mingle.
It's where 30-year-old Rhonda Spangler met her husband, her chiropractor and her current boss. And where Rita Monahan goes thrice weekly to shop, chat with clerks and catch the latest news.
So when owner Craig Mavis announced this weekend he'd lost the lease on his 16-year-old Wedgwood store to QFC, some loyal customers wept.
The store will close June 15 when its lease expires.
A QFC spokeswoman said the company was approached by the landlord and saw Wedgwood "as an attractive place to do business and wanted to be a part of that community."
Long-time customers charmed by Matthew's Red Apple's folksy, friendly ways greeted the news over the weekend with fear, dismay and a sense of loss over the passing of a neighborhood institution.
"I'm still a little bit on the shaky side imagining the changes if (the store) is not there," Monahan, 51, said yesterday.
Devastated by the closure, loyal patrons are organizing a Saturday morning rally and a petition drive to save the store, located at the corner of 35th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 85th Street.
"It's been very devastating for us and our employees," owner Mavis, 45, said yesterday.
Mavis said his landlord chose not to renew the store's lease.
"This is a difficult business and personal decision," said property owner Wes Williams. "It's not a black and white issue . . . It's a decision that considers a lot of factors.
"I'm sorry it ended up this way, but I think I chose the best company to serve the community needs," he said.
The store's 65 employees will be offered positions at a store he plans to open in the Lakemont area of Bellevue, Mavis said.
At the market yesterday, the mood was somber as employees, who were told the news Saturday night, relayed the information to shoppers.
"This is my home away from home," Connie Dallas, 85, said yesterday. "This is bad news."
Patrons like Paul Seely go to the store not just for produce or products.
"You can buy a head of lettuce anywhere," said Seely, who stops at the store on daily runs to trash-talk with clerks. "It's not an issue of having produce . . . It's part of the fiber of the community."
He and his wife, Cass, tell how "extra special touches" like a black-tie affair at the store bring the neighborhood together.
As classical music wafted through the store last winter, patrons wandered the aisles and feasted on free king crab legs, pork medallions and cranberry cream cheese relish. They were greeted by employees dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns.
"In the dead of winter, it was a way to get people out," said Cass Seely. "It was a way to appeal to the community."
The store holds Easter egg hunts, Halloween pumpkin carving contests and activities for children.
The store tries to be so inclusive, customers joke, that no one loses any contests.
Many of employees began working there since high school and have stayed on because they love the job.
"It's a gathering place for all of us," said Joe Seely, 23, known as "Curly," who has been working at Matthew's Red Apple for six years. "It reaffirms the strengths of the neighborhood. It's remarkable to form those kinds of relationships with people at the store."
Seely has kept track of young customers as they grow up just as his own customers have followed him as he graduated from high school and college and went to work full-time at the store.
"We've watched families have children who have grown up and come to work for us," Mavis said. "I'm sorry to be leaving the Wedgwood community."
P-I reporter Phuong Le can be reached at 206-448-8128 or phuongle@seattle-pi.com
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