Saturday, December 28, 2013

The Curtain Comes Down On A Piece Of Chicago's History

Today is the last day in business for Dominick's grocery stores, which trace their history back to a corner store opened by Dominick DiMatteo in 1918.  After nearly a century in business, they will be gone forever after today.

We in Uptown are lucky that we know the fate of our local Dominick's -- the one at Sheridan and Foster will turn into a Mariano's sometime around the end of February or beginning of March.  What will happen to so many other stores is uncertain.  Only 15 of the 72 Dominick's are spoken for as of today.

In a way, it was the closure of the seedy Chicago Lodge hot-sheet motel at 920 West Foster that got us a Mariano's.  Dominick's bought the land the motel stood on and demolished it in 2009, then tore down its small outdated store on the corner and built the new state-of-the-art store on the two empty lots.  At only three years old, it was a prime location for a new tenant, and Mariano's snapped it up.

Farewell, Dominick's.  It's the end of an era.  If you want to be there at the end, get there by noon.  That's closing time, forever.

6 comments:

  1. It was my understanding that it was only the Chicago stores closing and not the ones in the burbs correct?

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  2. No Paul, Safeway is pulling out of Illinois altogether.

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  3. fyi the pharmacy will remain opened.


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  4. There was basically nothing left but bananas.

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  5. I hope that I see some of the same faces working in Mariano's that I saw all of the time at Dominicks. I know they all had to reapply and weren't given preference, but I hate to think of them losing their jobs at this (or any) time of year. Here's wishing the best to all Dominicks employees facing hard times now. May 2014 bring you greater rewards and prosperity.

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  6. Good riddance! Maybe it was locally owned at one time, but the Dominics of today was just a Safeway with a different name. High prices on the most basic of items, make you use a tracking card just to get halfway decent prices on things that should not cost that much to begin with... if you forget your card you can expect to add 30-40% on top of your cart.

    I hope Marianos does not have those stupid cards to swipe and has reasonable prices. d

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