Opened just last year, Rainbow Foods has decided to leave Austin and close its 56,000-square-foot store.

Tuesday, February 15, 2000

Opened just last year, Rainbow Foods has decided to leave Austin and close its 56,000-square-foot store.

The Rainbow Foods store in Minnetonka also is scheduled to close in the coming weeks, according to a report in today’s Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Details of the closing were sketchy, with a date of April 11 being circulated as the closing date, but neither the local store nor the store’s corporate office in the Twin Cities would confirm or deny the date, or the closing.

Located in the Target center on 14th Street NW, Rainbow Foods became the business anchor lacked by the development in October when an agreement with Oppidan Investment Co., the developers of the shopping center, was reached.

The Austin Rainbow Foods store opened in 1999 and employs about 60 employees. Competition with Cash Wise Foods and Hy-Vee Food Store, two nearby grocers in the city, caused the store to underperform. Rainbow President Tom Farello left the 46-store chain in January.

The Oklahoma City, Okla.-based Fleming Cos. Inc. hopes to find ways to improve efficiency and profits and said the stores were not performing up to expectations, according to the newspaper report.

Some 80 workers are employed at the Minnetonka facility.