Last updated on June 14th, 2024 at 10:12 am
The County Market in Girard, Illinois, the only grocery store in town, was destroyed by fire May 7.
On May 30, Girard County Market opened a mobile grocery store in the parking lot to serve local residents. The mobile grocery store is open from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. daily and is stocked with fresh produce, meat, dairy, frozen, bakery and deli as well as a limited number of grocery items.
County Market plans to rebuild the store. Steve Rakers, regional director of operations for County Market’s parent company Niemann Foods, told The State Journal-Register that he talked to engineers the same day as the fire. County Market spokesman Gerry Kettler said the company hopes to reopen the store in less than a year.
Meanwhile, the store’s 65 employees have been offered jobs in other locations at their current wages during the rebuild.
“We’re going to keep them employed,” Rakers told the newspaper. “Anybody that wants a job has a job during the whole interim time.”
The cause of the fire was thought to be electrical in nature. It originated in an older portion of the building, according to local media reports.
