Schnucks Relaxes Rocking ‘Round the Clock

Two Schnucks stores that were previously open 24 hours have scaled back their hours.

These St. Louis-area supermarkets – in Dardenne Prairie and High Ridge – are now open 6 a.m. to midnight; 28 of Schnucks 67 metro St. Louis stores are open 24 hours.

Lori Willis, Schnuck Markets spokeswoman, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Schnucks began re-evaluating its 24-hour stores several years ago when a factory closed nearby one of its stores. Without the plant’s late-night shift, there was no longer a need for the late hours.

Willis told the P-D that grocer decided operating hours on a store by store basis, and if there’s not enough traffic in the later hours, it’s not cost-effective to maintain round-the-clock operation. “Our goal is to operate our stores in as efficient a manner as possible in order to keep costs down,” she told the P-D.

Back in April, the management team at Culinaria, Schnucks’ downtown St. Louis grocery store, proposed closing the store two hours earlier, at 8 p.m., the P-D reported. But when some downtown residents objected, the store manager reconsidered the proposal and instead scaled back operations by just one hour, to 9 p.m., on weekends.