After the store on South Meridian Street shuts its doors next month, just one O’Malia’s grocery will remain.
A southside grocery store is set to close next month, breaking a recent trend of new and expanding stores.
O’Malia’s Food Market, at 8904 S. Meridian St., is set to close Nov. 5, leaving just one remaining store to carry on the once-popular local grocer’s name. The lone remaining O’Malia’s will be at East 126th Street and Gray Road in Carmel, which opened in 1970.
A spokesman for the grocer’s parent company, Marsh Supermarkets Inc. in Fishers, did not respond to messages Monday morning, but an employee of the store just north of County Line Road verified the closing.
The homegrown O’Malia’s chain, which was founded by Joe O’Malia in 1966, had eight stores when Marsh acquired it in 2001. The store previously operated under the Mr. D’s banner. Mr. D’s operated a store at Whiteland Road and U.S. 31.
Since 2009, Marsh has closed O’Malia’s locations at 56th Street and Emerson Avenue, North Meridian Street in Carmel and College Mall Road in Bloomington. Marsh also has closed its own stores in recent years, including one in Greenwood and one in Franklin.
The trend recently on the southside and in Johnson County has been to open new stores and expand existing ones.
Less than 2 miles away from the O’Malia’s store set to close are organic and specialty stores Earth Fare and Fresh Thyme, near County Line Road and U.S. 31, that opened in the last two years.
In the last year, a new Costco was built on County Line Road, near Emerson Avenue. And two Kroger Marketplace stores recently opened at County Line Road and Emerson Avenue, and on U.S. 31 in Franklin.
And recently, few miles south on State Road 135, a new Walmart opened at Smith Valley Road and a new Aldi opened nearby. A new Kroger store is planned further south at Smokey Row Road and State Road 135.
Frank Swiss, principal broker at Swissco Real Estate, said he’s not surprised by the closing of the O’Malia’s on South Meridian Street, given that Marsh provides the store “no advertising and no branding.”
