Dive Brief:
- The Fresh Market is closing two stores, one in Naperville, Illinois, and another in Framingham, Massachusetts, a spokesperson for the specialty grocer confirmed in a Friday email to Grocery Dive.
- Both stores have been open for less than a year. The Naperville, Illinois, store opened in November and the Framingham, Massachusetts, location opened in December.
- Despite these closures, The Fresh Market is still eyeing growth. It plans to open four new stores over the next several months — two before the end of 2025 and another two early in the first quarter of 2026, according to the spokesperson.
Dive Insight:
The Fresh Market decided to close the two locations based on its routine portfolio evaluation, noting it will support affected team members through transfers to nearby locations or through severance, the grocer’s representative said.
According to WARN notices, 47 employees were impacted by the Naperville location shuttering and 50 team members were affected by the Framingham store closure.
The specialty grocer “remains on a growth trajectory,” the spokesperson said.
The Fresh Market plans to open two locations in early December: one in Lexington, Kentucky, followed by a store in Chicago’s “Old Town,” according to the spokesperson. To date, The Fresh Market has opened five new stores in 2025, two of which are in the greater Chicago areas of Northbrook and Algonquin, Illinois. The company’s store fleet consists of 166 locations across 22 states, per The Fresh Market website.
While The Fresh Market wouldn’t comment on store expansion plans for 2026, it did confirm two stores are in the works for early next year. The Fresh Market added that it aims to reopen its Hendersonville, North Carolina, store during the first quarter of 2026, as the location was damaged when Hurricane Helene struck the state in late September 2024.
