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Focaccia and fava bean salad will be among the items no longer sold at Cupertino's Oakville Grocery and Marketplace store. The store closed at the end of October, only a few months after opening.
"Expectations were high," said Oakville spokeswoman Marie Martin. "We realized, though, there wasn't a long-term sustainability."
The high-end grocery store opened in July as the prototype store in a planned expansion of the Oakville chain. The Napa Valleybased chain hopes to open 25 stores similar to the Trader Joe's format, with locally grown produce and high-quality, pre-packaged items. The chain selected Cupertino because of its diverse demographics.
However, Martin said the response was not as high as expected, and problems surfaced from the store's size and location.
"The location was hard to find," she said of its spot on Stevens Creek Boulevard across from Cali Mill Plaza, "and too large for the amount of merchandise carried." The successful Oakville store at the Stanford Shopping Center, for example, is half the size of the Cupertino store.
Martin said it would be cheaper to open a new store elsewhere, rather than make changes in Cupertino.
The new location is not yet determined.
This is little solace for Cupertino, which has struggled to keep its businesses. Recently, Anderson Chevrolet also shut its doors.
Carol Atwood, Cupertino's director of business services, said the loss in sales tax revenue of roughly $40,000 would be small compared to the big picture.
However, she said, "all in all, the components add up," referring to the collective loss in revenue from closed businesses. This year the city's annual sales tax revenues are approximately $2 million below the $10 million collected in an average year.
"They were a significant new business," said Atwood. "We hoped they would stay. We hate to lose any businesses."
An Oakville store located in Los Gatos also closed in 2002 due in part to the poor economy.
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