‘We can’t make it make sense anymore’: Earl’s Grocery to close in Elizabeth

CHARLOTTE — Earl’s Grocery will permanently close later this month. The 7,800-square-foot urban grocery store’s last day will be July 24. It’s located at 1609 Elizabeth Ave.

Sisters Bonnie Warford and Tricia Maddrey founded that grocery — named after their father — in 2014.

“We have really put a lot of thought into this, and we just can’t make it make sense anymore,” Warford says.

She says the sisters are going to take the rest of the year off and then reassess.

The decision to close is tied to profitability, Warford says. Earl’s pivoted during the pandemic to become a full grocery store but isn’t making enough money to be sustainable, she adds.

“We had turned the ship. It was getting better, but it still wasn’t enough,” she says.

Earl’s lease expires in August, and the sisters decided not to renew it. National Restaurant Properties is handling the sale. The business is listed for $150,000, which includes the lease and its assets.

It states that the market, deli and bottle shop has a history of revenue in the $1.4 million to $1.55 million range — but revenue dropped to just over $500,000 in 2020.

“This pandemic fallout from a small-business perspective is going to keep revealing itself for a while,” Warford says. “For Earl’s, there were a lot of factors at play. People working from home, road construction … In the past few weeks, some of the foot traffic has returned but not where we need it to be profitable.”

The closing marks a second loss for the sisters.

In June 2020, they announced the closing of Carpe Diem Restaurant and Caterers after 30 years, choosing not to renew its lease.

Read more here.

(WATCH BELOW: North Carolina restaurant adds 20% automatic gratuity to off-set living wage)

North Carolina restaurant adds 20% automatic gratuity to off-set living wage (NCD)

©2021 Cox Media Group