The Shoppers Food Warehouse in College Park closed for good on Nov. 8, along with the chain’s stores in Coral Hills near Capitol Heights, Laurel and Germantown.

Shoppers’ parent company, United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), declined to explain why the chain closed the stores. “As we work to strengthen our retail business for the future, we’re taking steps to optimize our footprint where necessary while continuing to enhance the customer experience in our remaining stores,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement to College Park Here & Now on Oct. 28.

The decision follows a series of shutdowns in the D.C. area this fall. Four additional Shoppers locations in Essex, New Carrollton, Waldorf and Westminster closed Oct. 11.

College Park Economic Development Director Michael Williams said this may be part of a larger UNFI initiative to close most of its locations in Prince George’s County.

UNFI is a wholesale distributor of organic and specialty groceries and health, beauty and wellness products, according to its website—unlike Shoppers, whose focus is not organic foods.

The distributor, which supplies grocery stores like Whole Foods, “has made the health-wound sector [and] the organic sector their focus, so I believe that Shoppers has become a little bit expendable,” Williams said.

According to Williams, the College Park Shoppers was one of the company’s top-performing locations over the past two years and had “several years” left on its lease at 4720 Cherry Hill Road near Ross Dress for Less. Williams said he expected the store would close but added, “It hurts.”

College Park is home to four other grocery stores—Lidl, MOM’s Organic Market, ALDI and Trader Joe’s—as well as several cultural markets selling specialty foods. Williams said he is looking to quickly bring in a new grocery store.

Customers taking advantage of Shoppers’ half-price going-out-of-business sale on a recent Saturday said the store’s closing is another bump in the road for buying groceries.

Danielle Smith, a resident of Chillum, said she has been a Shoppers customer for several years and recently started buying from the College Park location when another store near her home closed. Now, Smith said, she may abandon Shoppers altogether. “This is a great store, [and] I’m just upset we didn’t even get a notice that they were leaving,” Smith said. “I’m coming to do my shopping and this is what I get.”

Other longtime College Park customers said they weren’t informed until they saw a sign at the entrance reading, “Store Closing 50% Off Grocery.” Lara VanPelt of Laurel said she has shopped at the College Park location for many years. VanPelt, an employee at Wood’s Flowers and Gifts on Baltimore Avenue, said she frequently stopped in after work to grab groceries.

Shoppers employees said the closing was a shock to them as well. Deyci Castillejos, who has worked for Shoppers for 18 years, moved to the College Park store to work as a customer service manager just a few months ago and said she is unclear about her future.

Castillejos said employee compensation remains unclear and she is waiting for word from the employee union, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Unionized employees and officials demonstrated outside of the College Park Shoppers on Nov. 3.

In the store’s final days, Castillejos said she noticed that customers seemed sad about the closing. “Our customers enjoy shopping here,” Castillejos said. “A lot of people have been shopping [with us] for 30-plus years and they have been saying that they will miss the location.”

“Every time we get a number of employees getting laid off or out of work, it hurts,” Williams said. “I feel for the loss [experienced by] employees, especially the ones who call College Park home.”