Photo by Intisar Seraaj-Sabree.
Debbie Norris walks the aisles of the Crestline Piggly Wiggly with her granddaughter, Emme Smith.
“Say, ‘I’m going to miss my doughnuts and cheese puffs at the Pig,’” she motions to Emme. “It would make me start crying at the thought that we won’t be able to have our morning doughnut and our cheese puffs in the buggy.”
When the Pig opened, it became “our store,” Norris explains.
She shopped there with her children and even brought them to trick-or-treat growing up. And now she does the same with her children’s children.
Across the store, Charles Cooper is thinking about how he will be missing more than Halloween candy and cheese puffs when the store closes its doors for good next month.
He’s been the produce manager at the store for two years, but because he is one of the newest employees at the store, he expects to be laid off — just like he was at Bruno’s, where he worked for 38 years.
“When chains go under, they get tougher on the little guys, but that’s business,” Cooper said. “It’s depressing, but there’s nothing that we can do about it. It’s out of our hands. There’s a possibility that things may change, and we hope that they do.”
Store manager Frank Campbell said Piggly Wiggly is working to try to place the Crestline employees with jobs in other locations before the store closes.
Lease negotiations for the space of the Crestline store ended in September when Andy Virciglio, co-owner of Piggly Wiggly Food Stores of Jefferson County Inc., announced that the store would be required to vacate the premises by the end of November to make way for a new tenant.
“We did our best to make this work,” Virciglio said in a statement. “We tried and tried to work out our lease agreement. We agreed to the landlord’s fair market rent increases. We have been good tenants in the space for 30 years, but the landlord chose to go another route with another tenant, and unfortunately we cannot do anything about that.”
The news was released two days after a community-organized effort named “Save the Crestline Pig” reported a rumor that the store would close by Sept. 30. The organization, represented by a Facebook page with more than 5,000 “likes,” first sprung up in June and has since been active in providing the community with a place to voice its opinions during lease negotiations.
Much of the information released during negotiations was classified as rumor. Mountain Brook City Manager Sam Gaston told Village Living that a company out of Auburn talked with City Planner Dana Hazen earlier this year about adding a drive-through window to the existing Piggly Wiggly location. The company’s name was never confirmed.
Other reports arose that the visiting company represented a national pharmacy corporation like CVS or Walgreens. Gaston also said that the City’s records show that chains like CVS create about one-fifth the amount of sales tax revenue as the Crestline Piggly Wiggly.
Representatives from CVS did not return a request to comment for this story by deadline, but store employees told Village Living in June that the company renewed its lease on the Crestline location in 2013.
Virciglio stated he did not know who would occupy the space following Piggly Wiggly’s departure.
“For 30 years, the Crestline Piggly Wiggly has been a consistent supporter of community-based fundraisers and activities,” Virciglio stated. “We will miss that in Crestline, but our Homewood and River Run stores will maintain that Piggly Wiggly community involvement. And, especially we appreciate the outpouring of love and support this community has provided the store, each and every day.”
Until its doors shut, Crestline Pig supporters like Norris are continuing to pour out the sentiments that Virciglio recognized.
“We’ll miss everyone so much,” Norris said. “I think that this is just a shame that this is happening.”
