Seven South and West Side Chicago Save A Lot stores are at risk of closing this weekend if the parent company can't find an investor.
The food deserts on Chicago's South and West sides could spread even wider if seven Save A Lot grocery stores close at the end of the week.
All the stores opened within just the past couple of years. Now they are at risk of closing this coming Saturday if Yellow Banana, the Ohio-based company that owns and operates the stores, does not find a new investor to help keep them open.
The reasons the company is giving are twofold: the death of the company owner and that once the new Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program restriction went into effect, they could no longer afford to stay in business. To my cynical mind, that means their business model was built entirely on government handouts.
YMMV
...A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed the possible closures after an exhaustive effort to keep the stores afloat that included Save A Lot providing and paying for a substantial amount of inventory for months and meeting with the city’s Department of Planning and Development. The company has already notified employees of the possible termination and will pay them through the month.
The setback was the result of a domino effect. In April, Yellow Banana CEO Joe Canfield suffered a fatal stroke. Canfield drove Yellow Banana’s investment in the six stores, and according to the source, the company does not have anyone qualified to pick up the pieces.
The stores have not paid for inventory for the past six or seven months, largely because of SNAP benefit cutbacks that came with passage of the Big Beautiful Bill.
According to the source, SNAP money at the six stores accounted for almost 50% of revenue, and SNAP sales have declined about 27% year over year.
Projections at the start of the year showed the stores were getting close to breaking even but would still lose in the range of $500,000, a figure the source said was not insurmountable. Then the SNAP cuts kicked in.
Save A Lot has ended its arrangement with Yellow Banana. For the stores to remain open beyond July, an investor would have to emerge with a plan to get the stores back on track. Save A Lot is willing to work with a partner without any upfront money, but the chance of someone or a solution surfacing dwindles with each passing day.
The city of Chicago had also dumped significant cash into these stores in a sort of partnership to keep them afloat, many of the requirements for which - such as minority hiring (of course - Chicago!), etc.- I guess the company had difficulty meeting. Those failures cost them cash in fines they didn't have, so it obviously wasn't all the evil Trump administration taking away the EBT snickerdoodle and soda allowance.
...Yellow Banana had a $26 million deal with the city to refurbish and open the six stores, which had to remain in business for 10 years from the time the stores opened for Yellow Banana to receive full compensation.
Opening the stores did not come easily as the process faced construction delays, community concerns and fines.
Despite meeting an extended deadline, the city fined Yellow Banana for failing to meet certain project criteria. The company had committed to allocating 26% of hard construction costs to minority-owned businesses and 6% to Women Business Enterprises. Additionally, Chicago residents were supposed to complete at least half of the total work hours.
The city issued a fine of $5,735.23 when it found that Chicago residents completed only about 43% of the work at the Morgan Park store. Yellow Banana also paid approximately $70,000 in liquidated damages for failing to meet the minority, women-owned business and resident workforce requirements at the Gresham location, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
This news report sheds some light on the situation at the one West Garfield area store. The reporter notes that people she had been talking to told her that 'this store behind me has been many different names.' That would tell me it's a difficult location for a grocery store to survive for whatever reason, if this store is going to be just the latest in a number of failures at that location.
Residents and community leaders continue to express concern over the potential closure of several Save A Lot stores in Chicago, including locations in West Garfield Park and Englewood, citing the impact the stores have on access to groceries and healthy food options.… pic.twitter.com/ysOaPAhPbT
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) July 22, 2026
I mean, you really feel for the folks who don't have an alternative in the neighborhood, like the lady interviewed here.
7 more grocery stores are shutting down in Chicago this weekend
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 24, 2026
The city spent $14M to help them stay
Residents are outraged: pic.twitter.com/llND2QbQ4s
The Englewood store had been a Whole Foods, which had closed, and then Yellow Banana intended to open something else. But in the video, the reporter said the community 'pushed back' on those plans. The city of Chicago kicked in the $13 million to renovate and open that Save A Lot, eventually planning on dumping $26 million into all the chain's stores for sprucing up.
Not the best bet under the circumstances, with a financially troubled parent company and a neighborhood that might not have been able to sustain a Whole Foods, but perhaps could have handled something a step up from Save A Lot's EBT dependency.
And this also has me confused - Surely Whole Foods did its research before dropping a new store in that spot. I see a pharmacy and clinic or something on the signs in the background on what looks like a pretty new and pleasant shopping center. Have the income demographics of the neighborhood changed so dramatically in a few short years, as the Whole Foods collapse was more of a corporate phenomenon than an individual location issue?
Strange.
But the bottom line seems to be that blaming the new, healthier SNAP restrictions on purchases is everyone's get-out-of-jail-free card...
...Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, however, blamed the federal government and cuts to certain things like SNAP benefits for the potential closures.
“You know what’s happening at the federal level? That’s what’s causing the disruption of the local market,” Johnson said. “I’m going to continue to do my part to make these necessary investments. The hope is that our different leaders can come together to find a way.”
...for the collapse of a project that probably never should have been signed with Yellow Banana to begin with, considering the firm's difficulties and cash flow issues prior to the SNAP falloff.
...Challenges: construction/opening delays, city fines related to minority- and women-owned business and local workforce requirements, lawsuits, theft, prior store performance problems outside Chicago, and earlier quality complaints at some locations. Save-A-Lot had stepped in with extra operational and inventory support for a period before ending the partnership. Reports indicated the stores were still unprofitable (projected losses in the hundreds of thousands even before the sharper SNAP drop) and that Yellow Banana needed additional capital (around $3 million in one account) to continue.
Particularly in areas with a history of grocery store failures.
But you're still going to make money if your SNAP recipients are buying good food instead of as much crap, although the crap is easier to keep stocked. Fresh veggies, meat, and dairy take work. I don't know if they're buying those, nor do I know how many have seen their benefits reduced because they didn't meet the work requirements.
The grocery business is brutal. But if it, like wind turbines, is built on government handouts, it's bound to fail.
Eventually, you run out of other people's money.
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