Willowbrook Dominick’s prepares to close its doors

WILLOWBROOK – Reminiscent of the Y2K scare of 1999, yellow caution taped closed off empty aisles and customers gathered what they could from the depleting inventory at the Dominick’s in Willowbrook.

Located at 6300 Kingery Highway, the store is just one of many Dominick’s in the Chicago area that will close its doors Dec. 28 if a buyer doesn’t come forward.

The holiday season has only added to the dismay of the employees as they wait to see how the future of the location pans out, including Michelle Mareci of Willowbrook who has worked at the location for almost two years as a bakery clerk.

“The only job offer I was given was working at Jewel for 12 hours,” Mareci said.

Mareci plans to take the job until she can find something else and also may look toward collecting unemployment.

In the meantime, the stores have at least been busy with a 50-percent off sale as customers took advantage of the great deals and tried to gather what little was left on the shelves.

“I came in here for the bargains, but I’m very upset about the closing,” said Charlene Novak of Oak Brook.

For regular customers like Fania Markos of Oak Brook, news of the closing was difficult to hear.

“I’m not happy at all about it because it was so close to my home,” Markos said.

The parent company, Safeway, is currently looking for competitors to buy all 72 Dominick’s locations, though like Willowbrook’s location, several have yet to be purchased.

Those that are not bought by the end of December will close, and, so far, little is known about the status for the Willowbrook Dominick’s.

“There not telling us, but from what I hear Whole Foods is going to be transferring over,” Mareci said.

Tim Halik, village administrator for Willowbrook, said Crain’s Business recently reported that Whole Foods wanted to move into that Dominick’s store location.

“We have not received any contact from Whole Foods so we do not know whether this is true or not,” Halik said in an email. “At this time, we anticipate the Dominick’s will close on Dec. 28 in accordance with a prior notice they provided us.”