12 Tops Market Stores Change to Grand Union Banner -- Again

CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. -- Twelve Tops Markets repurchased by Keene, N.H.-based C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. have been reopened as GU Family Markets, reflecting their switchover to the Grand Union trade name.

Before they were made Tops stores, the locations had been previously Grand Unions, according to a local press report. The stores, which are all in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state, comprise two locations in Saranac Lake and one each in Elizabethtown, Bolton Landing, Schroon Lake, Corinth, Warrensburg, Hamilton, Ausable Forks, Peru, North Creek, and Chestertown.

Williamsville, N.Y.-based Tops, an Ahold USA banner bought the stores from C&S in 2001. That same year C&S had purchased 170 stores for $300 million from Grand Union, which had filed for bankruptcy protection but later liquidated. C&S then sold many of the locations local supermarket companies, including Golub Corp., which runs Price Chopper supermarkets, Hannaford Bros., and Tops. There are currently about 35 Grand Union stores, all of them GU Family Markets. Tops bought 22 Adirondacks-area stores from C&S, but has started selling them in order to focus on its core western New York market.

C&S spokeswoman Karen Adelman told the Albany, N.Y. Times Union that the company's aim was as smooth a transition as possible: "The goal is to minimize any difference, and just assure folks the staffing is strong. It's a chance for us to go in and hopefully serve the community well."
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