G&G Supermarkets closes its doors after 53 years

A rush of shoppers came to the G&G Supermarket in Santa Rosa Monday afternoon to pick up last-minute items before the longtime family-owned business closed it doors for the final time after 53 years in operation.

Tom Gordon, 92, of Freestone, was one of them. But he didn’t buy the russet potatoes on sale, 2 pounds for 69 cents. He didn’t pick up the 50-percent discount on all ice cream products or even the 80 percent off on all greeting cards, which one woman grabbed by the handful.

In fact, Gordon didn’t buy much of anything. Instead, he came to say goodbye to a place where he shopped for 40 years and where his connection extended beyond the weekly routine of buying groceries.

G&G was bought last month by Pleasanton-based Safeway Inc., which will rebrand the stores in Santa Rosa and Petaluma into Safeway stores.

Gordon knew the employees by first name and considered them friends, people who would check up on him if they didn’t see him in the store. In fact, those workers had comforted him about two years ago when he waited for an ambulance to arrive after having a heart attack in the store.

“I feel like I’m part of the family,” Gordon told CEO Teejay Lowe, whose family founded the store in 1963. “It’s like attending a wake in a way. It’s an obligation.”

The stores are slated to reopen in mid-December, said Safeway spokeswoman Teena Massingill. All 250 G&G employees will be hired by Safeway under terms of the transaction.

G&G was founded in 1963 by Robert Gong and his late father-in-law, Gee Kai Gong, and has remained in the family since.

Robert Gong, 82, was bagging groceries Monday before the doors closed, clad in a tie and jacket with a bright red handkerchief in the breast pocket. Many customers came up to shake his hand or take a selfie with him before leaving the store. At least one mentioned shopping at G&G with her mom years ago.

“Fifty-three years ago, I was a box boy...today: box boy,” Gong said. “It’s tough. The grocery business is very, very tough.”

The sale came as the grocery industry continues to be one of the most competitive sectors in the American economy as large chains such as Safeway and Kroger Co. battle against those in the natural foods sector, such as Whole Foods Market, and those more discount-oriented like Trader Joe’s.

In Sonoma County, G&G was one of the group of independent grocers such as Oliver’s Markets and Community Market that carved out a niche by selling the area’s rich bounty of dairy, wine, beer, fruits and vegetables. But consolidation continues in the sector as earlier this year Woodland-based Nuggets Markets bought Sonoma Market and Glen Ellen Village Market.

G&G was especially known for its fresh seafood — such as the Dungeness crab that came in every November — and hard-to-find Asian cuisine, and earned a reputation as a place that championed local producers.

It also did things that wouldn’t necessarily be considered efficient by some. The Santa Rosa store had a 36-foot-long display case of its sliced meat, Lowe said, compared to most supermarkets with about 6 feet of self space.