Only a few years after Bottom Dollar exploded on the grocery shopping scene in the Lehigh Valley with more than half a dozen brand new supermarkets, the chain is no more.
The Bottom Dollar discount grocery store in Fountain Hill closed on Jan. 11, 2015.
The Bottom Dollar at 1529 Broadway, Fountain Hill, closed its doors Sunday, after company officials announced earlier this month that all the stores in the region would close by Jan. 15.
The stores were sold by Delhaize Group to ALDI Inc. last year.
In a response to a comment about the closings posted on the ALDI USA Facebook page by Saucon Source publisher Josh Popichak, the company issued a response that will likely frustrate some former customers of the Bottom Dollar stores.
As it has done since the sale was first announced, ALDI USA refused to immediately disclose what it plans to do with the 66 discount grocery stores in western and southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
A screen capture of a comment by ALDI USA posted on the company’s Facebook page on Jan. 12, 2015.
“It would be premature to share any plans specific to the purchase of these real estate assets at this time,” the company said in its response. “We anticipate the sale will close by the end of March 2015, and, after that occurs and we have finalized our plans, we will communicate them as appropriate.”
A “Store Closed” sign is attached to the front doors of the former Bottom Dollar grocery store on Broadway in Fountain Hill, Pa., on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015.
Many consumers in the Lehigh Valley have expressed the hope that ALDI will reopen some of the now-closed Bottom Dollar stores as ALDI stores–particularly in areas that have no other grocery stores.
And in December, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) urged ALDI to consider keeping the stores in Pennsylvania open in a letter sent to ALDI President Jason Hart, according to a story published by the Express-Times.
In addition to stores in Whitehall Township, Bethlehem Township, Palmer Township and Richland Township, near Quakertown, ALDI USA has a large distribution center in Center Valley, Upper Saucon Township.
A total of nine Lehigh Valley Bottom Dollar stores have been affected by the sale, including stores in Bethlehem, Allentown, Nazareth, Wilson, Fountain Hill and Whitehall. There was also a Bottom Dollar store in Quakertown.
The nearest Bottom Dollar store to Hellertown was the store at 719 Stefko Blvd., Bethlehem.