South Side staple is closing
Bethlehem’s Ahart’s Market location has seen slower sales during pandemic
The Bethlehem location of Ahart’s Market is closing at the end of April, a manager at the store confirmed Wednesday.
The South Side store at 410 Montclair Ave. has been a staple of the neighborhood for 20 years.
It will close April 30 because of slower sales caused by the coronavirus pandemic, manager Luis Morales said. Fewer students have been shopping at the store as Lehigh University switched to remote learning during the pandemic, which also affected sales, Morales said.
Ahart’s also has locations in Bath, Allentown and Blakeslee.
Those locations will remain open, Morales said. A Phillipsburg location of the store closed in 2017.
The store’s employees were informed of the decision a couple of days ago, Morales said.
The store’s owner, George Ahart, couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
Customers at the store Wednesday afternoon were shocked and saddened by the news. The closure of Ahart’s leaves South Side residents, many of whom are low income and without transportation, with one major grocery store, C-Town, on Third Street.
“I hope they find someone
“It’s a South Side thing. Everyone goes here. It’s sad to see them close. I do hope someone does something with it. It’s just part of the South Side. Everyone kind of knows each other here.” — Latoya Murry
to buy and keep it open. A lot of older people walk here,” said Donna Cardenas, who has been shopping at Ahart’s for eight years, ever since she moved to the area from New York.
Cardenas said she will miss the fresh baked bread that’s available every Sunday morning.
Jessica Bonilla, who lives one block from the market, said she’s been a shopper almost every day for seven years.
“It surprised me when I heard they were closing,” she said. “It’s a clean store and I like the bread.”
Latoya Murry has been shopping at the store since she was a child, when it was still a Food Lane. Now she shops there with her children.
“It’s a South Side thing. Everyone goes here,” she said. “It’s sad to see them close. I do hope someone does something with it. It’s just part of the South Side. Everyone kind of knows each other here.”
Ahart’s opened in 2001 at the longtime site of a former Food Lane grocery store, part of the now-defunct Laneco supermarket chain, according to The Morning Call archives.
George Ahart, a Northampton County grocer, around the same time also reopened two other former Laneco supermarkets as Great Valu stores — one that continues to operate at 14th and Allen streets in Allentown and another that closed in 2017 on Route 22 in Phillipsburg.
The addition of these Great Valu stores more than doubled the size of Ahart’s supermarket operation, which at the time employed about 130 at stores in Bath and Blakeslee in Monroe County.
Founded in 1998, Great Valu is a consortium of about 24 independent markets in six Mid-Atlantic states, according to its website.
“We have joined forces to improve our buying power and lower costs to you, but our owners are each a part of their individual communities,” a message on the company’s website reads. “… Because we are independently owned and operated, we can serve you better than national chain stores and we work hard to offer you the best values, the freshest produce and the finest meats.”
In discussing the imminent arrival of Ahart’s in October 2001, then-Bethlehem Mayor Don Cunningham noted that the former Food Lane was the only supermarket in South Bethlehem. It was heavily relied upon by residents and Lehigh University students. So crucial was the store, Cunningham said, the city was provided low-interest loans and other financial incentives to lure Great Valu to south Bethlehem.
“In that neighborhood, it was critical for us to attract another supermarket,” Cunningham said, “So we created some incentives.”
Today, another south Bethlehem grocery store, CTown Supermarket, operates a few blocks away on Third Street.
Some good news for the south Bethlehem community: Riverport Public Market, featuring 24 food and beverage vendors, is set to open in late 2021 at the site of the former Starters Riverport restaurant at 17 W. Second St.
The forthcoming market, occupying a two-story, 24,000-squarefoot space, will create “a vibrant new place to celebrate local food and craft culture,” according to the development team.
So far, a start-up brewery, a local winery, a Mexican restaurant and a micro creamery have signed on to occupy spaces there.