When Artis and Edna Sidney opened Garden Cove Produce Center 31 years ago, Huntsville had nothing like its mix of fresh organic produce, nutritional supplements, and personal attention. The products are more widely available now - the personal attention, maybe not so much - and Garden Cove is closing its doors for good Friday night.

It wasn't the growing competition that finished Garden Cove, Edna Sidney said Monday. It was the embezzlement of $250,000 eight years ago by trusted employees that proved too hard to overcome. "We had to make a hard decision," Sidney said. "It was the right business decision. It wasn't a heart decision."

Garden Cove began with a community garden that Artis Sidney started at what was then called Oakwood College. The garden was so wildly popular it outgrew the campus and became a store, then another store, then the sprawling market at the corner of Meridian Street and Pratt Avenue.

At the store on Tuesday, customers lined up with carts filled with vegetables and fruit. Online, a gofundme account was established to help pay the Sidneys' bills or even keep the store going.

"The way we grew was listening to people's needs," Edna Sidney said. "There wasn't this big, grand plan. It grew out of meeting needs honestly."

In the beginning, Artis Sidney would work his day job, then drive to Atlanta to trade with farmers for fresh produce and drive it home. Edna Sidney quit her job as a respiratory therapist to run the store. In his "spare time," a laughable idea for a man who still runs a farm and makes runs to Atlanta, Artis Sidney turned Garden Cove's grounds into a garden of plants, ferns and trees.

"Soil is Artis' discipline," Edna Sidney said Monday. "Flowers, food, it's his passion."

As the store grew, "people from around the world," many brought to town by now Oakwood University, joined locals at Garden Cove. Luxury cars and modest rides shared the parking lot. English mingled with other languages as people reached for pesticide-free fruit and vegetables and measured bulk grains and beans. Children grew up coming to Garden Cove with their parents and brought their own children in turn.

"A lot of this food is nothing but medicine," Artis Sidney said Tuesday, "and we wanted to make it affordable."

When Garden Cove opened, Huntsville had no Earth Fare, no Fresh Market, no Whole Foods and no Sprouts. It had no Publix. Garden Cove was so influential locally, Edna Sidney says Publix sent managers to learn from the Sidneys.

There might have been room for everyone - big stores and Garden Cove - but the embezzlement left the Sidneys too short of capital and owing the IRS back taxes. And the competition did hurt. The couple fought hard to come back "and would often see signs of traction," Edna Sidney said, but it was a finally hole they couldn't escape.

"There are a lot of Huntsville businesses and, because of the big stores coming in, we are losing our customer base," Artis Sidney said. "I wish people would remember the mom and pop's."

This week, the fresh produce will be there on schedule when the store opens Tuesday morning. People will fill the store one last time all week. And Edna Sidney has no regrets and even holds out hope for the future. "We don't know if there's another version," she said.

"We want to turn this week into a thank you for 31 years," Edna Sidney said. "Help us clean these shelves and let us serve you one more time."

(Updated Aug. 30, 2016 to add quotes from Artis Sidney and to add reaction to the closing.)