The supermarket chain Earth Fare is undergoing a restart, and that restart will be featuring Marion County.
The company announced that its Ocala store would be its first in the Sunshine State to reopen for business after shutting down all 50 stores across the country and filing for bankruptcy back in February. The Ocala store will open back up right where it was originally situated in Shady Oaks Shopping Center, which is located on 2405 SW 27th Ave. The grand reopening is currently slated to take place in September.
Ocala was chosen as the launching pad for a reopening plan that focuses heavily on the southeastern portion of the United States. A new set of founders for Earth Fare, headed by Dennis Hulsig of Asheville, North Carolina, plans to reopen a string of stores mainly in North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as Georgia, Virginia and Michigan. There is currently no word on the status of the other thirteen store locations in Florida.
Taking up just shy of 30,000 square feet, the Ocala store first opened back in April of 2017, and will look to return to its initial look as much as possible by rehiring former employees. One woman wrote on Earth Fare's new Facebook page to express her gratitude that the company had already rehired both her son and her husband.
Founded in 1975, Earth Fare is a natural food supermarket, selling all-organic fruits and vegetables as well as antibiotic-free seafood, meat and poultry products.
