Mrs. Green’s, a New York-based natural grocer that failed in its first attempt to crack the Chicago market two years ago, is looking for a fresh start.
The chain, which closed its first Chicago entry in Lincoln Park last summer, relaunched Wednesday with a “neighborhood market” in Winnetka, hoping that a new downsized store — think mini-Whole Foods — will resonate with upscale suburbanites.
The concept is organic and locally sourced offerings, prepared foods, gluten-free this, non-GMO that, a coffee and juice bar, all crammed into a cozy 12,000-square-foot market.
“We’re the anti-Mariano’s,” said Pat Brown, 56, who took the helm of Mrs. Green’s in 2014, after its initial Chicago launch. “Mariano’s are great stores. But sometimes you want convenience, you want to get to know the people you are buying your products from.”
Owned by Natural Markets Food Group, a privately held Irvington, N.Y.-based chain with 15 stores, Mrs. Green’s is looking to open six stores in the Chicago area, mostly along the North Shore.
In November 2013, Mrs. Green’s opened an upscale 20,000-square-foot supermarket in Lincoln Park, with ambitions to become a Chicago player and fill some of the void left by the demise of the Dominick’s chain. At the time, executives said Mrs. Green’s wanted at least six locations in the city and suburbs but never got past the first.
Plans to replace a shuttered Fox & Obel grocery store in Streeterville fell through in 2014, and the chain’s stand-alone Chicago location struggled to gain traction in the increasingly competitive post-Dominick’s market.
The company invested $4 million to build out the Lincoln Park store in a former hospital garage, losing as much as $20,000 per week from the outset, sources said. The opening last February of a nearby Whole Foods dealt the floundering Mrs. Green’s store a major blow.
In July, Brown decided to close the company’s sole Midwest outpost. Only a small corner coffee shop remains open, with a very, very large back room.
“We blew it there,” Brown said, noting that the store was too big and opened too soon. He pointed to newspaper ads for the store featuring items only available in New York as among the many mistakes that won’t be repeated this time.
Mrs. Green’s spent about $2.5 million renovating the new store in Winnetka’s Hubbard Woods shopping district, in a historic building that was initially a Packard auto dealership in the 1920s — the name of the long-defunct brand is etched in stone at the ornate roofline — and more recently served as a Gap clothing store.
Mrs. Green’s will continue to focus on natural and organic products, but with more of a local flavor than its first run in Chicago. Brown said the new store has about 785 local items, from Two Brothers coffee to Two Fat Guys barbecue sauce.
“It’s almost hyperlocal — we’ve got people that live in the neighborhood that might sell at a farmer’s market,” Brown said. “They’re not big enough to sell to Whole Foods. We’re able to create partnerships to give people that first opportunity to break into retail.”
Nearby competitors include North Shore staple The Grand, Whole Foods and a recently opened Mariano’s.
Jim Hertel, senior vice president of Chicago-based grocery consulting firm Willard Bishop, said Mrs. Green’s is an “appealing proposition” on the North Shore but it will take more than local and fresh offerings to succeed against entrenched competitors.
“The real question is going to be: Are they going to be able to establish the customer service and customer intimacy link The Grand has in a relatively quick period of time,” Hertel said.
Hertel said outsiders have come to Chicago before with high hopes, only to see them dashed by local competition and provincial tastes. One notable flameout was Minneapolis-based Byerly’s, an upscale chain that opened large stores in Highland Park and Schaumburg in 1996, with plans to expand to 10 locations. One year later, Byerly’s closed the two stores and left Chicago.
Brown said Mrs. Green’s needs to expand quickly to achieve critical mass and is already working on opening its second store. Locked into a 20-year lease in Lincoln Park, the company plans to reopen a downsized 16,000-square-foot store with the new concept as early as May, Brown said.
The Chicago market has evolved rapidly since Mrs. Green’s first failed launch. Mariano’s, which gobbled up a number of former Dominick’s locations, grew to an upscale 34-store chain and was purchased in December by supermarket giant Kroger. Jewel and Whole Foods have also grown here, while new players like Heinen’s have established a foothold.
Brown believes the window of opportunity remains open for Mrs. Green’s in Chicago, an opportunity he doesn’t plan to squander this time.
“It’s very difficult to get a second chance,” Brown said. “But we’re going to get one here, and we’ve got to make sure that we do it right.”
Twitter @RobertChannick
