Bethesda Safeway Store To Close Saturday

Shelves are barren as Old Georgetown Road store will be shuttered after 27-year run

By Joseph Zimmermann and Andrew Metcalf

Shelves at the back of the Old Georgetown Road Safeway were barren Friday morning Andrew Metcalf

After 27 years in Bethesda, the Safeway on Old Georgetown Road is closing this weekend.

The 41,300-square-foot store that opened in 1991 at 7625 Old Georgetown Road, near the intersection with Woodmont Avenue, will close Saturday.

On Friday morning, the store was offering up to 75 percent off on the remaining items left on its sparsely stocked shelves. Remaining products included cans of cranberry sauce, spice packets, jars of mustard, apples, frozen turkeys, salami and olives.

Donald Van Gieson was the lone cashier. He said store employees were offered jobs at other Safeway stores in the area. He said he’ll move to the Germantown location.

Van Gieson said he wasn’t sure when the store would officially close Saturday, but that it wouldn’t be open all day.

Maxwell Ridore, a Safeway spokeswoman, told Bethesda Beat in January that the store would be closing because it was underperforming.

The nearby Safeway on Bradley Boulevard remains open. Other grocery stores in Bethesda include Harris Teeter on Battery Lane, Giant on Arlington Road and Trader Joe’s on Wisconsin Avenue.