Jerome, Idaho-based Ridley’s Family Market is buying Bella’s Markets in Wellington and Gypsum in a sale that follows months of complaints from shoppers angered by empty shelves.
Mark Ridley, the company’s director of operations, said he hopes the deal will be finalized as early as next week.
“We will start filling these stores immediately with trucks delivery daily as soon as the purchase is final,” he said in an e-mail.
Wellington shoppers have found empty shelves at Bella’s for months. “I have just got my fingers crossed until the deal is done,” Wellington Mayor Jack Brinkhoff said.
Ridley’s has been interested in establishing a presence in Colorado for some time, Ridley said.
“The opportunity to buy these stores from the current owners is just the opportunity we have been looking for,” he said.
Ridley’s is a family-owned chain that operates 30 supermarkets in Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming. The company opened its first store in 1984, in Payson, Utah.
Ridley said the company has been wanting to expand into Colorado.
“These are good locations in nice growing communities with dedicated teams of people working in the stores,” he wrote.
Ridley’s promotes its stores as “small enough to serve you. Large enough to save you money.”
Sam Mancini, , without naming a buyer. Mancini didn’t return a call for comment on Thursday.
He owes Gypsum several months of sales tax, town manager Jeff Shroll said. That money will be recovered when the stores are sold, he added.
In August 2014, Mancini sold to the Odell family of Akron.
The sale returned the markets to the family, which had sold them to Mancini in 2006.
The markets were the only supermarkets in each of the towns.
And when Mancini was unable to keep them stocked, some residents were driving up to 120 miles to get groceries.
Residents of Akron, who had confronted empty shelves at the Bella’s there, have been thrilled with the result, town clerk and administrator Annette Bowin said when the sale was announced.
“It has been great because they went back to the original owner. It took a little while; the stores were empty,” she said. “We are back to business as usual. Life is good.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or @dpmcghee
