Future uncertain for Big Lake IGA

BIG LAKE — About 25 employees at the Big Lake IGA are still waiting for word about a change in ownership, a store manager said.

The store’s owner, Omni Enterprises, a statewide grocery store chain, recently closed Swanson’s, one of two grocery stores in Bethel, after less than a calendar year in business, according to store officials and the Omni Enterprises website. The closure would leave the Pittman Road Three Bears as the nearest grocery store for area residents.

The company also owns the Copper Valley IGA in Glennallen, the N&N Market in Dillingham, and had previously operated a mega store in Bethel. A woman who answered the phone at Omni said they had not heard of any such liquidation, that liquidation was confined for the moment to the Bethel store. Company officials were not available for immediate comment. Managers at both the Copper Valley IGA and the N&N Market referred calls back to the company headquarters in Anchorage.

By Thursday afternoon, the website for the company was no longer online.

Company employees at the Big Lake store have received word that Omni is liquidating some of its remaining stores, according to longtime manager Jerry Hill, who’s worked at the store since a struggling Carr’s outlet was turned into Steve’s Food Boy, then Big Lake IGA.

Among other difficulties, Omni Enterprises is employee-owned, meaning employee pensions, issued in company stock, are now worthless, Hill said.

For now, the Big Lake store remains open, and products are still on the shelves, despite rumors that the store had closed, Hill said.

“It’s pretty stressful, nobody knowing if we’re going to close,” he said. “Hopefully someone will be coming in here and taking ownership soon.”

Inventory had not yet been depleted, Hill said.

“We’re keeping up the business as usual,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of empty holes yet.”

Consumers worried about the potential closure should keep shopping at IGA, Hill said. Higher shopping numbers could bolster revenues, which could make the store a more attractive prospect for sale, Hill added.

“We are still open, and if the community is still wanting a store, they should come out and shop us,” he wrote, in an email. “And if a new company buys us, they need to support the local store if they want one in the community.”

Omni Enterprises, established in 1975, is not affiliated with Omni Food of Alabama, though a representative of the Alabama company said the company had received at least one errant angry phone call about it.

Some in Big Lake said that if the store closes, it will be a major loss.

“That store’s been here as long as I can remember,” said Jerry Ross, the owner of the lone Big Lake bar, Floaters. “That’s one of the great things about living down here in Big Lake. We’ve got schools, libraries, one business of each type, including what was a full-service small grocery store.”

The grocery had faced competition on bulk orders from the opening of Three Bears grocery stores on Knik-Goose Bay and Pittman roads, Ross said. However, he said many Big Lake residents, including weekend visitors from Anchorage, were willing to pay sometimes-higher prices just to keep a core business in the community afloat.

“It’s definitely the hub, the anchor,” Ross said. “The spokes all connect to that store in that town. It’s like the center of our wheel. If that place is not open, it’s going to be a huge loss.”

In the interests of full disclosure, Omni Enterprises also is a customer of the Frontiersman, which has received notification that a standing order for the printing and distribution of a weekly grocery insert has been canceled, according to publisher Mark Kelsey.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.