A brief public service announcement: There are even more opportunities for Farm Fresh fried chicken fans than has been previously reported.
In our feverish coverage of the grocery company’s demise, we managed to overlook two locations that never closed, were sold to an independent buyer and are still flying the Farm Fresh flag: 928 Diamond Springs Road in Virginia Beach and 115 Norge Lane in Williamsburg.
Kumar Bhavanasi, a tech executive in New Jersey, bought the two locations in July and hired Farm Fresh store manager John Black to manage them. Black said they hope to replace the vacant Starbucks Cafes inside the stores with local coffee shops, and there are plans to re-open the pharmacies, though not for a year or more.
As for the fried chicken, Black said they’re already adding fryers to keep up with demand. Between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, “the line sometimes goes out the front door.”
“We can only produce so much with two fryers,” he said. The Virginia Beach store is adding three and the Williamsburg store one.
Black has spent much of his 43-year grocery career as a store director, including when Supervalu, Farm Fresh’s former parent company, hired him to run a Virginia Beach store in April 2016. Two years later, Supervalu announced it would sell off the brand.
“I was disappointed, let’s put it that way,” Black said. “I think I fit in quickly with Farm Fresh.” But it’s funny how life works. Black was hired by Bhavanasi and now the vast majority of the 65 workers at each of the two stores are former Farm Fresh employees, too.
So where does that leave us as far as Farm Fresh? Besides Bhavanasi’s two, there are three owned by international grocer Chris Lee, one in Richmond owned by an independent grocer group from central Virginia, 11 locations closed and the rest were sold to Harris Teeter, Kroger and Food Lion – including one location bought by Harris Teeter that won’t be a Harris Teeter after all.
Supervalu also still has about 9 years left on a 20-year lease for the space in Norfolk’s Harbor Heights building that it opened in 2007 and closed in 2011.
Kimberly Pierceall, 757-446-2588, kimberly.pierceall@pilotonline.com