Austin's community-owned grocery store, Wheatsville Food Co-op, has sent owners a bevy of updates regarding its high-profile upcoming location closure and expansion. The Guadalupe store (3101 Guadalupe St.) will close as planned at the end of its lease in 2026. However, now the co-op has decided to back out of its plan as announced in July to buy two new stores in North Austin.

The updates came in a community newsletter containing more than 1,500 words on the topic, at least partially written by general manager Bill Bickford. The section also presented a Q&A. Although this depth of information is more useful for owners, these are topics that will affect Austin at large, since anyone can shop at Wheatsville. Plus, it would have been taking over existing Fresh Plus stores that already have shopper bases.

The plan was for Wheatsville to purchase Fresh Plus locations in Hyde Park (408 E. 43rd St.) and Allandale (2917 W. Anderson Ln.). According to Bickford's address, the plan was "no longer financially viable." This was based on new information gained during a due diligence period, a real estate term for the time between offer acceptance and closing to inspect the property.

"We will, of course, remain open to other viable options should they arise, wrote Bickford. "However, after exploring available real estate in North-Central Austin multiple times over the past few years, we do not expect that a suitable option can be found and opened within the 15 months remaining on our lease term. As responsible stewards of the co-op’s assets, we must therefore prepare to operate as a single-store co-op, focused on offering the best possible shopping experience at our South Lamar location."

Other updates from the newsletter focused on the logistics of closing the Guadalupe store. Among them are reducing the size of the sales floor and number of cash registers; these are intended to reduce the amount of work needed to run a store that is underselling compared to its inventory, free up some funds by reducing inventory, and reduce theft by making items most likely to be stolen more visible from the registers.

The store will no longer offer deli counter service, but it will continue selling all its current grab-and-go products. The coffee station will also remain. Some bakery products that aren't selling well will be removed, but the newsletter emphasizes that popular products will remain on shelves.

Finally, hours will change. The Guadalupe store will be open from 8 am to 9 pm daily starting October 20. This shaves an hour off in the morning, and another at night.

Work on these changes starts now and is projected to be done before Thanksgiving shopping reaches its peak.