Mary Kay Rife, the owner of Rife's Market on W. 5th Avenue near Grandview Heights, said the 78-year-old store started by her great-great-grandparents is shutting down. She expects to be closed for good by the end of October.

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mary Kay Rife spends the holidays providing pies, meals and other details for hundreds of central Ohio families.

Not this year. Not ever again.

Rife, the owner of Rife�s Market on W. 5th Avenue near Grandview Heights, said the 78-year-old store started by her great-great-grandparents is shutting down. She expects to be closed for good by the end of October.

�We�re tired,� Rife said of herself and her husband and business partner, Mike Zimmerman.

The market will maintain normal business hours and wind down in the coming weeks, Rife said. The store�s meat department is almost sold out, and no new perishable items, such as produce, will be ordered.

A sale on the remaining goods will start this weekend, Rife said.

�It�s bittersweet,� she said, �but it�s time.�

The family started talking about closing the store last Christmas, Zimmerman said. A decision was made around the end of June, and word started circulating this week.

Rife, 51, called and told her parents, who also owned the market and live in Florida. She said they understood.

�They lived it,� Rife said. �So they understand. When you run a small family business the way we do, hands on, it�s your life.�

The market�s core was a meat department stocked with Ohio products and produce from local farmers. Rife said one of the store�s slogans is that Rife�s was the original farmers market.

Even with the explosion of the buy-local movement and farmers-market shopping, Rife�s struggled a bit in recent years as consumers found their wallets lighter as a result of the recession. Rife said the market is still profitable but takes a level of engagement that she and her husband can�t maintain.

Both said they will take some time off, maybe travel a bit, then look for new jobs. Rife said she has a background in social work and hopes to use it to work with people.

�I�m going to sleep in for a while,� Zimmerman said, �and take five strokes off my handicap."

As always, Rife has plans for the holidays, but for the first time in a long time, they don�t involve anyone in Columbus. Their daughter is in the Air Force, stationed in Oklahoma, and they�ll visit her for Thanksgiving.

At Christmas, the family plans to gather in Florida with Rife�s parents.

There is no set closing day yet, so whenever the stock is gone, the market will be gone, too, Rife said. She�ll miss the loyal customers, the ones she called when cider or new raspberries came in. She�d like to say goodbye one more time.

�Come and see us,� Rife said. �Please come and see us.�

jmalone@dispatch.com