Relocation led to demise of Super L Ranch Market
True North, purchased the site in June 2017 with plans to get rid of the center’s garden and aesthetic.
Outlier is spending $10 million to turn the former Chinese Cultural Center into a training center and headquarters for the majority of its companies, Phoenix Business Journal reported.
Following the sale, the company immediately faced backlash from the Asian American community, including business owners and the Arizona Asian Alliance, The Arizona Republic reported in 2017.
“They didn’t waste no time to ask us to move out right away,” Lai said. “We were given a month to move out. All the mess coming from them, it’s a big thing.”
“The way they did to us was very nasty, very unfair to us,” he added.
Legal battles hurt businesses
Lai said Super L Ranch Market had been on a month-to-month lease. Shortly after Outlier took over the Chinese Cultural Center, he received a onemonth notice to move out, he said.
Melissa Marchwick, a spokesperson for Outlier, confirmed Super L Ranch Market was given one-month notice, but that a week before the lease was up, the owner had requested a one-month extension, which Outlier granted.
Either way, a couple of months was not enough time to start a new supermarket, Lai said. And even though the Scottsdale spot wasn’t ideal, he felt rushed to relocate.
Business has been much slower at the new location and he’s seen an even bigger drop after road work began nearby, he added.
Marchwick also confirmed that Outlier won its legal battles with Super L
Ranch Market. A judge ordered Super L Ranch Market to pay $20,422.97 in court costs and attorney’s fees, according to court documents.
Super L Ranch Market sued 668 North, a subsidiary of Outlier which owns the building at the Chinese Cultural Center, for defamation. 668 North denied the accusation and its parent company filed counterclaims, The Republic reported in 2018.
If Outlier didn’t kill his business then, it’s killed it now, Lai said.
“Right now, everything impacted us,” Lai said. “We were profitable until we were forced to move out.”
What’s next for the market owner
Lai said he’s done with the supermarket business and will now focus his attention to his other business, Izzy’s Bakery & Cafe in Mesa. The Asian bakery offers a variety of pastries, including custard egg tarts, buns and cakes. Izzy’s Bakery & Cafe also offers Taiwanese noodle soups and snacks, as well as boba tea.
Lai said he signed the lease when he found out H Mart was coming to Mesa. He thinks H Mart’s popularity will bring foot traffic to Izzy’s.
Closing his grocery store has left him tired and running on little sleep the past couple days, he admitted. The store was what brought Lai to the Valley in the first place. He previously lived in Atlanta, where he started a Chinese restaurant specializing in Hunan cuisine and another restaurant that served Mexican and Japanese sushi, he said.
Lai got his master’s degree in counseling and psychology, but didn’t go into that career tract because he felt pressure to provide for his two children, his wife and his parents, all living under one roof, he said. Going into the food business seemed like an easy way to make money.
Turning 99 Ranch Market into a profitable business in Atlanta, and then in Phoenix, were some of his proudest moments in his career, he said.
Goodbye to Super L Ranch market
Jenny Hom is one of Super L Ranch Market’s longtime shoppers. She grew up in central Phoenix and the Chinese Cultural Center was only a 10-minute drive away, a convenient location for picking up spices and chili sauces for cooking stir-fry.
She went to Super L Ranch Market on Saturday and Sunday to take advantage of the 30% off closing sale, as well as to say goodbye to the employees she’s on a first-name basis with. When she went, the grocery store was so packed people had to wait for shopping carts, she described.
“I feel really, really bad,” Hom said. “I couldn’t speak for every individual, but for myself, we have to just adapt and find other ways to buy our groceries. Probably we have to go way out to Mesa and Chandler.”
Printed on the green wall next to the cash registers, shoppers at Super L Ranch Market could read the parting message one last time: “We hope you enjoyed shopping with us. Let us know what you thought.”